


The strongest Stars

by Rebeldust



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drug Addiction, Fix-It, I am really not good at this tagging thing, Kyber Crystals, Recovery, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-18 11:49:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9383660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rebeldust/pseuds/Rebeldust
Summary: "Then they started to feel the heat from the explosion and first rushes fo dust hitting them.The last thing Jyn recalled thinking is, that she wishes the Kyber to let her and Cassian find each other in the Force again .The strongest Stars have hearts of Kyber."-Their unexpected survival leaves Jyn and Cassian with the task of finding their fate and the reason they've been spared.The Empire is more vunerable than ever, but so is the Alliance, short on men and resources and drunk on their victory.And several smaller defeats make it seem possible that there is a traitor working undercover with the Rebels...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my personal Fix-It and i know it has been done over and over again by a great many talented people. But i was like hell yeah i'm still writing down how i wanted it to happen.  
> And if you didn't want the pain, you wouldn't be reading this, right?
> 
> Please note that english is not my first language, so please don't mind any grammar or spelling mistakes, i did the best i could. I case someone who is a native english speaker wants to be my beta reader in the future so i don't have to embaress myself with my poor english skills, feel free to contact me about it!
> 
> I suggest the following soundtrack for this chapter:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ia8PbeTXgo (Balmorhea: "Remembrance")  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qemb3iBlp1o (Rogue One Soundtrack: "Your Father Would Be Proud")  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luM6oeCM7Yw (Mogwai: "Take Me Somewhere Nice")  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am7eHyJ8_1Y (Doctor Who OST Season 4: "Doomsday)

When Orson Krennic was finally able to shake the dazed feeling after hitting the ground, with a burning blaster wound at his shoulder, the girl was gone. He glimpsed over to the monitor he tried to block her from and saw that harddrive plugged into it. A sigh of frustration left his lips. He knew that the Girl, Jyn Erso, daughter of Galen and Lyra Erso, at last carried out her fathers revenge, and probably also her own now. He also knew, that there was no point at running anymore. For none of them, because as he turned his head up, he looked right onto his biggest achievment. That Deathstar came closer, and as it finally stopped moving, and he counted down the actions that were happening up there in these very seconds to prepare for the blast, Orson Krennic started to laugh. A crazy, frustrated, crying, final laugh. He briefly rememberd when he watched the destruction of Jedha from above, rememberd how terrifingly beautiful it had looked. And when his laugh finally turned from hystericly mad to an angry and helpless scream towards the Monstrum above him, the green blasts met each other and raced in one big blinding stream of light directly towards him.  
The second before the blast crushed the top of the tower and Krennic with it, he was already blind and his skin was mostly burned, and he died still wondering wether to be proud or mad.

Captain Cassian Andor was shot many times in his life. Captain Cassian Andor had shot many people in his life. Captain Cassian Andor fell from many heights in his life. Captain Cassian Andor had pushed many people to fall troughout his life. Captain Cassian Andor had seen many people leave him. Captain Cassian Andor had left many people.  
But none of that was anywhere near to those moments after he had watched Jyn take an the risky leap over to the data tower. None of that was anywhere near to when she grabbed something he couldn't quite identifiy on the tower, and startet climbing up savely. None of that anywhere near when Krennic, that white monster, suddenly appeared with two Deathtroopers and started shooting at them. Nothing had prepared him for the fear, that suddenly caught him. The Fear, that the troopers might miss him and hit Jyn instead. A tiny, resonable corner in his head tried to tell him, that right now, she had the harddrive with the plans for the Deathstar, and was therefor much more valuable than him right now and that this was the main reason he should protect her. She had to make it to the top and transmit the plans. She had to make it. The more active part of his brain, his emotions, his exsistence shouted the same, for other reasons though. Jyn had to make it. Jyn had to be save. She just had to.  
He managed to take out the troopers, more by luck than anything else, but that was good enough for him right now. Two down, one to go. He aimed, but the withe monster was faster. Cassian had been shot before. The burning pain of the blaster bolt ripping his side open felt ridiculously familiar. The pain pressed the still remaining air out of his lungs, and with a suprisingly small amount of terror he felt his hand letting go of whatever he was holding on to on that tower. As the pain and the realisation, that he was about to fall to his inevitable death darkend his view, and he knew he hard only moments left, he chose to look up to Jyn. She was holding on to the tower, in an safe angle so Krennic couldn't get a clear shot, the harddrive plugged to her belt. She starred down to him in absolute terror, not able to realise he was about to fall. Their Eyes met. To Cassian, everything seemed slow and heavy now, but he was thankfull that his last blink at her was longer than he expected. He tried to tell her with his eyes everything he wouldn't have the time nor strength to say now, as he felt his grip get looser and looser. He thought of all the excuses he could make, in every language he knew, that he would have to leave her and now and all the guilt he felt for not being able to keep the promise „All the Way“, how proud he was to have known this extraordinary woman, the regret he felt about all the days they had to come and never would see together, and also that he was afraid of what was going to happen, even if he haden't admidded to himself so far that now, feeling the end coming, he really was afraid. He wanted to tell her so much more, there was so much left unsaid... but the mercifull long moment was over to soon.  
His view went dark. The last thing he felt was rushing through air. The last thing he heard, or at least thought he heard, was Jyn crying out his name.  
Cassian fell many times in his life. And Cassian had left many people in his life. But none of that had prepared him for the Pain an Guilt he felt for leaving her.  
Jyn Erso had been a fighter all along. She didn't even remember being something else. Mostly because remembering the time before she started fighting hurt to much, so she made the pragmatic decision, not to remember anything that came before Saw. Until a few days ago, remembering Saw was okay. Not good, but okay. It had filled her with anger at being abandoned, and anger was good, anger kept her going. Now, the destruction of Jedha only days ago, seeing him again... when she thought of him, she had always pictured him as the strong, reckless man he was when he left her at 16. When she saw him again, he was broken. Not completly, his mind was still the ruthless fighter and kind of father she knew. But his body was. Or rather, what was left of it. He must have had a close encounter with a granade or some other explosive. But as burned and wrecked his body and skin was, as much burned his will to rebell and fight. That was something, they had always shared, the ability to burn for whatever cause no matter the casualties, sacrifices or injuries.  
She had to recall all of her training in shutting down emotions when she saw Cassian fall. Their Eyes had locked for just a second, his were dark and desperate for her to look at him, but she could only guess on what his last thoughts towards her might have been. They had only known each other for a few days, but it had been enough to transform their mutual distrust in respect and some sort of affection she couldn't really put her finger on. But then again, they both didn't even get the chance to try to put their finger on anything between them inthe short time they had.  
She hadn't been looking for any kind of connections, and the last thing she wanted to do was making friends with the Rebells. Attachments were dangerous, she knew that well enough. Yet still, she and the Captain had shared something, but now it was gone with him, crushed dead with him as he hit several beams and his broken body finaly came to rest on a small platform almost 50 Meters below her.  
Loosing him was worse than she had hoped. Jyn knew, and so did Cassian, that this was and suicide mission, that most of them wouldn't survive. She thought, she had prepared herself for loosing him, that the last years, that her whole life had prepared her for loosing people she liked. Somewhere in her head she drowned the tiny voice that pointed out to her that she actually had liked him. She swore, never to do that anymore, let alone admit that she did. She hoped, that he didn't regret following her as she stared down the his shattered lifeless body. She wonderd if she could keep going if his look to her was one of reproach. But all of the sudden, a kind wave brushed through her mind, irritating and yet reassuring. Jyn recalled on the moment she stormed out of the councelling room, and directly into the Captain and his volunteers. All those brave and ruthless man and women, standing behind a shy smiling Cassian. He wasn't following her because it was her, but because he believed, that she was right. Recalling this sentence over and over again, she somehow found the strength to turn her eyes from him and keep climbing up. They all had believed in the necessity of what she had to finish on her own now.  
She hadn't seen who pulled the trigger of the blaster that shot her Captain down, but deep in her heart, she knew, there was only one creature in the galaxy, that was able to cause her so much pain. And so, after climbing up while drowning in memories of Cassian, who had saved her from beeing blown up on Jedha twice, who didn't shoot her father, who pulled her from the burning wreckage on Eadu, and who looked just as angry, sad and guiltdriven as a human beeing could be when she confronted him on the stolen shuttle that took her from the body of her father, Cassian who believed she was right although he had no reason whatsoever to trust anything she said. And yet, he did.  
When she was high enough not to be able to see him anymore, she closed her heart again. Within minutes after his fall, she had accepted him in there unconditionaly, and accepted the fact that, if she was to survive this, he would now be one of the ghosts of the loved ones she carried with her. Her Mother, Saw, her father... Cassian would now be one of them. She knew it and with a little sigh she let the Captain sink into the cave of things she lost, and closes it carefully. She had no more time to mourn. No was the time to be angry.  
„Angry is good, angry keeps you going, angry is good, angry keeps you...“, she repeated Saws Mantra over and over again, climbing up and up. Grief and Angers are a toxic mixture, she knew. But right now, toxic was just what she needed. She couldn't recall if it took her minutes or hours to climb up until she reaches the platform with the manual control of the antenna. She feels the adrenalin rushing trough her as she plugs the harddrive into the manual. Just seconds now, and her job would be done and she could climb down and lie down besides Cassian. A tiny part of her is surprised at this wish, but it is very tiny... and then the manual starts a red blinking, telling her that the antenna is not properly anlined. Jyn cursed in a few languages as she looked around for a possibitly the fix the problem that's keeping her up here in this exposed position. She can see an hear the battle still going on, sees Tie-Fighters as well as Rebell-X-Wings. She cursed even more when she realised that the manual for the antenna is on an even more exposed bridge. She takes out her blaster and pulls the security switch down the ready the weapon. Her blaster wouldn't do any harm if a Tie-Fight would approach her, but it gave her a rare tense af security and controll on this crazy day. Jyn rushes over the the manual, only now realising that she is limping, something doesn't feel right in her ankle, but she has no time to worry about the crunching noise it's producing. The manual works easy and effective enough, she pulls a handle and the antenna starts turning into the right direction.  
The Explosion doesn't hit her directly, but apparently some Tie-Fighter took the chance to blow up the bridge she's stand on. Jyns blaster slips from her hand and falls down in the direction she doesn't dare to look to. Suddenly, as she desperatly hangs on the bridge, she realises, it had been the blaster she stole from Cassian. She pulls a face. This is definitly not a good day, not many things she genuily likes are falling aways from her.  
Everythin is aching, but Jyn manages to pull herself up to the bridge again, she needs to send the plans, she needs the reach the manual so this nightmare could finaly be ended...  
But then the other Nightmare stands in her way. The Nightmare, that hauntet her since the day he orderd her mothers death. The white Nightmare with the gentle and cruel smile, pointing a blaster on her.  
„This is definitly not a good day“, Jyn thinks to herself. But then again, how many good days had she actually had.  
She should run towards him, shove him down the platform and herself with him, watching im crush down, even if it meant her own death as well. She wasn't scared of dying anymore. Maybe, after all, death was kinder to her than life. She should just jump against him and leap... but the plans. All the men who died and are still dying around her, she can hear them, feel their hope an their anger and their fear. The Kyber crystal around her neck ist vibrating she realises. She has a responsibility towords all these people. Jyn isn't sure wether she likes beeing responsible of something, but right now, there is no choice. Somehow, she has to survive long enough to send out the plans.

„Who are you?!“, screams her Nightmare. She can't hide a little cruel smile, but why would she even try to hide it.  
„Oh you know very well who I am. I am Jyn Erso, daughter of Lyra and Galen Erso. And you are going to die.“, she answers his questions very quietly. No more need for the hot waves of aggression. Suddenly, everything ist very cold. Looking down to the barrel of a blaster wasn't new to her. It actually felt familiar. Jyn knew how to handle situations like this. She had to keep him talking until he made a mistake. And he would make a mistake. Jyn didn't want to imagine a realtiy so cruel he would always be the lucky one.  
The Nightmare keeps screaming at her, she hears something about loosing everything and dying, but she doesn't really listen. It seemed somehow ridiculous in a twisted meaning of the word, the he told her she would loos everything, when he was the one who already had taken everything from her. It sounds as if he decided to end his little speech and finally pull the trigger, releasing her from all the pain she felt by now, physicly and emotionaly.  
Only by instinct she ducks when she hears a blaster firerin. She wasn't willing to dogde the shot, she was willing to take it and be done with it. But nothing hits her. And all of the sudden, the Nightmare stumbles, loosing grip of his blaster and dropping to the flor, a red stain growing on his back.  
When Jyn looks up from the man in white, she simply cannot handle what she sees. 

It's Cassian.  
A bloody, broken, limping, very very alive Cassian.  
With a blaster in his shaking hands, still pointed to the direction were it hit Krennic. Jyn was never good at coping with feelings, but this is a whole new level. For what feels like eternity she cannot decide what to do now, cannot even remember what actually was to do. But then, the vibrating kyper around her neck and the battle sounds pull her back to the reality with and urgend cruelty, that makes her remember that plans, that transmission, the antenna, and she leaps towards the manual and after pressing a few buttons, the display shows her the upload status. As it data transfer is finished, her head turns to Cassian who is still pressed to an pillar, aiming on the man in white, but clearly not able to stand on his own feed on his own for long.  
Jyns head and mostly her heart are a mess. Not only is the man, who apparently meant so much to her, (although she only just realised it herself) not as dead as expected, but he has also just saved her from the Nightmare-Man. Jyn's very confused and very sure of everything in this moment, and it's everything at once. She's limping over to Cassian, to touch him, feel him, knowing if he was really there and alive.  
When she reaches him, he feels very real and very broken and yet stronger and more beautiful than anyone Jyn's ever met. She bursts out in a crying laugh as she touches his chest, his arms, his hair. Their Eyes meet for a very brief moment and now Jyn sees everything he wanted to tell her early, when he fell hit by a blaster bolt. In this moment, Jyn understands and accepts the fact that she is indeed capable of loving someone, and that someone else is capable of loving her. Surrounded by war and death and hope, she takes this knowledge and makes it part of her.  
When Krennic groans, reality all of the sudden pulls her back. She tries to get to the Nightmare and finishing him off once an for all, but a firm and strong arm around her waist keeps her from doing so. Cassian pulls her back to his chest, murmuring reasuring words against her temple and hair:

„Leave it, leave it. That' it, come on now.“

Still confused between hatred and love, she looks away from the man in white, looking back to Cassian, who is obviously in pain, judging by his face and his blood trenched side. Only now she realises, she actually managed to send out the data files for the deathstar. For whatever it was worth, she did it. They did it.  
His chin points toward an elevator door she hadn't noticed before. She takes the blaster from his now shaking hand, pulling his arm over her shoulder, her free arm around his waist, to support him towards the door.  
„Do you think... anybody is listening?“ he manages to hiss out, his free hand pressed to his still bleeding side, yet looking at her with so much affection it almost hurts to look back at him.  
„I do. Someone is out there...“, she answers, surprised she actually believes it herself.

He hisses from the pain, clearly not happy he had let her seen how miserable his condition was. When their entered the elevator, they heard another expolsion, this one louder than the ones before. As the door closed, Cassians weight heavy on her, she sees it coming.

Everything is very calm. She feels the kyber vibrating, and now she has time to listen to it. Within a fraction of a second, she sees what happend outside the tower.  
She sees K2-SO fighting of an impressive amount of Stormtroopers before beeing overwhelmend, crashing into the manual while saying his goodbyes to Cassian and here and sealing the vault.  
She sees Chirrut bravley praying walking toward a manual with an apparently important handle, which he pulls, then an expolsion, and Baze holding him while the monk slipped away and into the Force.  
She sees Bodhi, brave young Bodhi, so happy he managed to get the information trough. And as if the Force was telling them both, that he had now done his job, a blinking granade got thrown into Bodhis shuttle landing right befor his feet and ripping him and the ship apart.  
She sees Baze standing up from the body of his friend, his eyes filled with undescribable pain, going rogue one last time, he stopped caring about survival, there was no point in it anymore. He took a bunch of Stormtroopers with him, until a Deathtrooper was quick enough to activate an explosive, taking Baze and everything around him.  
She sees the bodys of all the brave volunteers that followed her an Cassian to this cursed planet to change something. She knows it at wihtin the blink of an eye, that it's just Cassian an her now. 

They hold onto each other tightly in the elevator, light only occasionaly dripping in to give them a chance for a short glaze at the others face. His Eyes were darker than usual, probably from the pain and adrenaline fading now, and she struggels to keep him upright. When he looks into her eyes, he knows. She doesn't have to say what the crystal showed her, he knows. He knew from the very beginning. He knew none of them would make it out alive, and he choose to follow her anyways.  
She can't help but feeling a little bit betrayed by life and force and everything, that only now, on the edge of everything, she found out about love.  
The look they share is long and intense, noise is drowned out and times seems to run slower again, as they share all the words that will remain unsaid. 

„I am afraid.“  
„I regret all the days we will never see.“  
„We did go all the way.“  
„We did it.“

When the elevator door finally opens, they have communicated a whole lifetime without saying a word. The Deathstar is floating in space above them.  
They are about to die, they both know it, and yet she feels surprisingly at peace.  
The battle is over, the notice bodys lying around, but they chose not to look at them.  
Cassian is almost passing out by the pain and bloodloss, but Jyn manages to carry him with her towards the beach. He murmurs something about her getting away, finding a shuttle or something and flee. But she shakes her head, smiles at him, a bit sad.

„All the way means all the way, not leaving someone halfway behind.“, she chooses not to say she wouldn't even know how to fly anything anyways. 

He is swaying, and she knows he is dying right here, right now, only clinging to this last moments with her so she wouldn't have to face the blast alone. It takes a lot of effort for him to lift his head, but he is rewareded with Jyns face looking at him with so much affection to him that it takes his breath away. Why did he have to die to realise what he could have had with this woman...  
He doesn't know how to express all of these feelings, all of the regrets, but deep down inside, he knows that he doesn' have to, because she's feeling the same. And just as he decides not to say antything more at all, something slips from his lips, in a husky voice he almosten doesn't reconize as his own:

„Your father would have been proud of you, Jyn.“

He instantly knows, he said the right thing, the only thing she actually needed to hear. Her eyes, her beautiful eyes, start swimming, and she doesn't hide the tears, because whats the point now, when everything is ending anyways.

She took his hand, and together they watched as the green blast hits in the distance, causing the shockwave rolling towards them. As the ground starts to shake, they suddenly find themselves in a close and neverending hug. Jyn felt her kyber vibrating again, tucked firmly between her own heart and Cassians. He was holding on to her with everything left, because there was no reason to hold anything back now. He wanted to feel her as long as possible. 

The Kyber between them sent out waves of kindness and peace, and both Cassian an Jyn feel as save in each others arms as they never did before in their life.  
Then they start feeling the heat from the explosion and first rushes fo dust hitting them.  
The last thing Jyn recalls thinking is, that she wishes the Kyber to let her and Cassian find each other in the Force again.


	2. Breathing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the second chapter of my "The strongest Stars" Series! I feel honored that you are planning on reading this!  
> Please keep in mind that i am not a native english speaker, so i hope you won't mind any mistakes. 
> 
> I suggest the following Soundtrack for this chapter:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS9SUmAyKWM (Hungry Ghosts: "I Don't Think About You Anymore But, I Don't Think About You Anyless")  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8-uhmgGBF0 (Yoav (Ft. Emily Browning): "Where Is My Mind?")  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUjAtYQkFm8 (Air: "Alone in Kyoto")

The last thing Jyn felt was peace. The first thing she felt was pain.

Everything was dark, something pounded on her chest, and every vein in her body was throbbing. Some voice in her head called out for her, telling her to focus on the pain, to not drift away again. Where had she heard that voice before? It sounded strangely familiar, yet so, so far away... her mind was so far away, just like the voice...

 

_She ran, the grass under her feet was as wet as her trousers and shoes. Rain and wet shoes was not unusual on Lah'mu, neither was running trough the wet grass. She ran toward her home, toward her parents, and everything was wet and cold..._

 

The next thing that came trough the fog in her consciousness was the feeling of the surface she apparently rested on. The voice continued screaming at her, she was still supposed to focus on her pain, which really didn't make any sense to her in that moment, because she just wanted to let it all go and drift away again...

 

_She reconized the bungalow, the fields that surounded it, this was home, this was safe, this was what she had been longing for. Her legs grew heavier, probably from the wet shoes and trousers, and it just got harder and harder to run towards the building. She really wanted to reach it, but something was pulling her back, it was forcing her not to reach the house..._

 

Her lips felt dry and cracked. Her lungs were tight and felt hot. She started wondering, why she could feel so many things, she wondered how there could be so many things existing as she could feel right now, how there could be anything like a ground or lips or lungs or hot and cold, how there could be anything else than pain...

 

_She saw her parents. Although she barely saw them, they were silhouettes in the rain and fog, everwhere was fog, but those were her parents, she knew for sure. The memory of them was just as vague as there outlines in the distant, more the memory of how she felt when they were with her rather the their actual looks. But those were definitely her parents._

_She was overrun by a wave of panic when she realised, there was another figure with them. A white cape, streaming in the wind, not affected by the heavy rain at all. She knew this man, she remembered this man, but she could only see his back from far far away, everything was so far away..._

 

Just as she worried what else there might be apart from pain, ground, lips and lungs she felt her left arm pressed down by something heavy. The thought that there was apparently something existing that was the weight on her arm... wait, she had an arm? This was all way to confusing, she almost wished to go back to just feeling pain, that would probably be easier than wondering what else there was. The voice in her head still hadn't stop to speak to her, sometimes gentle, sometimes angry, but she couldn't quite figure out what it had to say to her.

„Jyn, you gotta wake up child, you gotta keep on going!“

A small part of her confused consciousness wanted to ask, what the kriff a Jyn was. Did that mean, there was also something called Jyn existing?

 

_Suddenly, she remembered. The white cape. The Nightmare-Man. She started screaming and the storm that had accompanied her so far began to wail, rain crashing hard on her skin, and it hurt, everything hurt, and she was exhausted from running, but she had to reach her parents, she knew the Nightmare-Man would do horrible things..._

 

„Jyn...“

 

This was another voice, husky and broken and also very familiar, so familiar her heart ached... which obviously meant, she had a heart as well, although she wasn't sure wether this realisation was a comfort. And again, what was Jyn? Or who?

 

„My Child! You have to breath! Please, my Child, just do as I say, just once!“

 

That was the other voice again, the first one. But what was she supposed to do? What was the meaning of breathing?

 

_She knew what would happen before she saw it. There was the sound of a blaster beeing fired, twice, she saw the bright bolts shooting away. And the outlines of her parents fell to the ground as the the Nightmare-Man lowerd his weapon. She was screaming, everything was pain, erverything was heavy, her world was only a long, desperate scream._

„ _My Child! Come here, quickly! Come here, we need to go!“_

_She was still screaming, and she didn't mean to turn her head away from the bodies of her parents, but apparently she had done so, because an tall, dark skinned man appeared in her view, his hand reaching out to her, a desperate look in his eyes._

_The storm was howling around them, the sea was rising..._

 

All of the sudden, she remembered the voice, that had urged her to breath, and in the same moment she realised that she was suffocating. Breathing, right, she had to get air into her lungs, that was why they were existing. With a desperate sound only someone who just remembered that air is actually neccessary she breathed in, deep, sucking the air into her.

„That's it, my child, that's it, now keep going, don't drift away again!“

The Memory of Saw Gerrara dripped into her mind, a tall man, dark skin, wild hair, even wilder eyes, but with surprisingly much affection in them when they looked at her...

 

_She was still screaming, she couldn't stop herself from doing so, yet her arm reached out for Saw. She was slightly surprised by the fear in his eyes as he tried to reach her. But the storm around them crushed her to the ground, and with terror she realised, that the sea behind her was building itself up into a wall, a shockwave caused by her own screams, trying to wash away the Nightmare-Man and her memories and her pain. But it washed away none of those things. When the tsunami ran over the fields and the grass towards them, she was still pressed onto the ground by the wind, all air was pressed out of her lungs, and she had to watch helpless as Saw was taken away by the wave, screaming out for her..._

 

After a short moment of relief, her lungs were soon filled by fire again, causing her body (oh, so she had a whole body, that was an interesting fact) to shiver and fighting against itself in struggle to find out why it burned again...

 

_The wave ran over her, took Saw and left her alone, lying crying and screaming and sobbing on the muddy ground, and she could only watch as the white Cape came closer and closer, his silhoutte shaded by her tears, but she longed for the relief of beeing finally killed, beeing finally released from all this horrible pain. She saw as his hand with the blaster was rising, aiming at her. She realised, this wasn't the first time she stared down the deadly dark barrel of a gun, but she couldn't remember when and how that might have been. Then, the sound of a shot, but no physical pain hit her. Instead, the blurred white man stumbled, a red spot appearing on his chest, and falling to the ground to never rise again._

_She turned around, to the spot from where the blast came that saved her..._

 

And all of the sudden, everything came back to her-

 

_A bloody, limping man in terrible pain, messy dark hair, swaying on his feets, blaster still pointed to the Nightmare-Man, blood stains on his light shirt. His Eyes were fixed on her, his lips moving to form a word, a name... her name..._

 

\- and she remembered how breathing worked, that she had to repeat the effort of sucking air into her body. With the first deep breath she took, memories flooded her brain.

She was Jyn, she was the one the voices, Saw and the other one, had called out for.

She was Jyn Erso, daughter of Galen and Lyra Erso, Scavenger, Assassin, Thief, Soldier, Spy, Messenger, Rebell, Stardust.

 

Stardust.

 

Most of her was still pain, but she startet to force her way back, forcing her will on her body again. She was a fighter, by all means, and she would not be defeated by he own body, she would fight back.

She was a fighter and she was Stardust, and Stardust was everything, just everything. And as long there would be anything, it was made out of Stardust, and therefor, she would never cease to exist, and as long as she existed, she would keep fighting.

 

Cassian.

 

He didn't slowly drop into her mind like the memory of the abbility to breath. He crashed into her consciousness with so much force, she almost blacked out again. The thought of him filled her complety, the thought of him leaning against a pillar on top of the Datatower of Scarif, saving her from beeing shot by the man who murdered her whole family, the thought of his smile when she sent out the Death Star plans, the thought of his weight on her shoulders when they staggered into the elevator, the thought of the look in his eyes when they were in this small capsule, almost hidden from everything that happen around her, from their dying friends and comrades, from the inevitable end that approached them together with the Death Star...

 

The Death Star! The Beach, the Blast, the shockwave...

For a moment, Jyn tried to make out wether she was actually alive or if this was some kind of afterlife, but she didn't really care. She would have to open her eyes in order to find out...

 

She counted three breaths, then opened her eyes- and she saw blue. She shouldn't be to surprised, she thinks to herself, given the fact that she lay on her back, so i was only natural that her gaze would be directed to the sky. She shouldn't be surprised, and yet, she was. After everything she endured, a blue sky seemed way to normal to be real. The ground beneath her felt uneaven, and the realisation that it was sand also surprised her more than it should. The Memory of her and Cassian falling down on the beach, watching the blast and waiting for death in each others arms came back to her.

It took a lot of effort, but she managed to turn her head to her left, where she was suddenly again very aware of the weight that pressed her arm into the sand.

 

And there he was. Cassian Andor, Captain of the Rebell Alliance. Her Captain, her friend, her saviour, her home.

He didn't move. He didn't move at all. Jyn couldn't see his chest moving, there was no sign he was breathing, and now she started to panic. What, if he had also forgotten how breathing worked? Why wasn't he awake? Why wasn't he with her?

She turned her aching body to her side, moving her right arm over to his neck, slightly brushing over the stubbles on his cheek because she didn't aim good and missed the right point. She was searching for a pulse.

 

He looked even worse than when she encountered him on the platform on top of the tower. The blaster wound on his side looked really bad, still soaking the shirt in blood, the edges of the fabric burned together with his flesh. One leg seemed to lie in a quite unhealthy angle, and she remembered him falling from the data tower, hitting several beams, and his limp. She asked herself only now how he had managed to climb up again with these injuries...

 

Jyns panic grew into terror, there was no pulse. A small trickle of blood ran down his cheek out of his lips. She lost all awareness of her own wounds and pain as the fear of loosing him again grew bigger, she shook his shoulder, hearing her own hoarse voice crying out his name...

 

But he didn't open his eyes.

 

How could even death be so cruel to her? Hadn't live already taken enough from her? If death was just as bad as life, she couldn't see the point in even seperating those two.

 

Her hand wanderd down from his neck to his chest. She pressed her hands to it, clinging onto his shirt and somehow pulling him closer to her. She closed her arms aroung his lifeless body, trying to remember what their embrace had felt like when he still had a heartbeat, when they were facing death together. Now she would have to wait for it again, but she would never let go of him.

 

She pressed her face into his neck again, sobbing and crying because of all the pain she thought was gone only to have it thrashed in her face again. Even if he was gone before her, she would die in his arms. There was no other way to go. Ever.

 

At first, Jyn didn't realise that the hot pounding on her chest was real, that it was not some pain hallucination. It was her Kyber Crystal.

She tried to ignore it, she was busy crying and dying. When the pounding got unpleasantly hot and turned into vibration, she was starting to get angry.

 

„ _Angry is good, angry keeps you going!“, she heard Saw murmur in the back of her head..._

 

Why did the crystal disturb her in her grief, that was really not fair now.

 

The moment she had this thought was the moment, he opened his eyes and desperatly took a deep breath in. The second time that day, Jyn couldn't quite handle her emotions.

The Crystal stopped his strange actions and slowly cooled down.

 

His dark eyes were blank and unseeing for a few moments while his only movement was his chest moving heavyly up and down in ordern to get air into his system. After a while, he seemed to realise, where he was. Jyn had gazed in absolute disbelief into his eyes the whole time. His sight twitched in several directions, as if he was by instinct checking out his surrounding. Only then, he seemed to come aware of the woman clinging to him, with desperate, red eyes. She shivered when he focused completly on her, with just as much disbelief in his gaze as he saw in hers.

None of them knew how long they had been lying on the beach, just staring in each others eyes, their chests pressed together to feel each others heartbeat. Jyn wished, it would never stop.

 

When she heard a ship approach, Cassian was already unconscious again for a while, and she herself was also drifting away, completly happy to be with him, as bad as the situation was.

She thought about trying to stay conscious to see if the arriving ship meant good or bad news (probably bad, given her luck so far), but decided just drifting away no before finding out if they came to kill them finally was a much more pleasant way to go. She burried her face deeper into his neck, happy to feel his pulse against her cheek.

She felt people surrounding them and decided, this would be a good moment to die.

Then, everything was dark again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and maybe even leaving kudos or a comment, i am always very happy when that happens!  
> I am planning on continuing this series (so you will get some explanations for... well, everything. Are you as excited as i am about how this will go on? ), but since english is not my first language it always takes a while for me to write a chapter, but i really appreaciate each and everyone of you who is waiting for the next chapter.   
> Thank you for your trust in me!  
> Until then, stay save, stay warm, stay loved!


	3. Three times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life had rarely been kind to Cassian Andor, but dying three times a day seemed to be a little extreme, even to him. First the fall, then the Death Star blast, and now he would die a third time, probably for the last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, welcome to the third chapter! This one is a little bit shorter.  
> Please keep in mind that there might be mistakes in the text because english is not my first language.
> 
> I suggest the following soundtrack for this chapter:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaSVkb_XLt4 (Low: "Lullaby")  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q1zQNiggq8 (Memories of Hetalia: "Lullaby for a passing life")

„Cassian? Cassian?! No, come on, don't do this to me, wake up, please!“

 

_The darkness, that surrounded him was defeating him. It was everywhere, swirling trough his sight, his brain, even the sound that came trough seemed somehow dark to him. Dark and cold, oh so cold._

_Cassian was floating trough darkness and pain, not beeing able to remember who he was supposed to be. Sometimes, his mind was clearer, but most of the time he just wasn't anything. Time was an abstract concept, time didn't exist, nothing existed, only him and darkness and beeing cold._

_Sometimes, images flashed before him. A man in a white Cape, a blaster in his hand, burning skies, a burning world, a burning explosion running toward him, and..._

 

… _and Jyn. In the short moments when he saw her face, she was painfully present and filled his mind and self completly, and he missed the feeling of their embrace with an intense longing, he almost thought it possible that there was something other than the nothing he was lost in most of the time. The feeling made him want to scream her name out in hope she'd hear him, maybe he even did. But those moments where always gone way to quickly, and as soon as they were gone, he lost all memory of her again, until it would crush into his mind again._

 

Floating through the cold darkness as he was, the sudden smash on his chest hit him by surprise. It seemed strange to him to apply this expression on himself, but the closest word to describe what he felt like was rebooted. The darkness retreated from his sight and mind, and he almost instantly missed the cold, because his whole body started to burn, especially his lungs. It took him a moment to realise, that it was the lack of oxygen that caused the pain. It took another moment for his body to remember, how breathing worked, but then he desperatly sucked air in. His eyes flickered around by instinct, searching for clues where, when and how he was.

The next thing he noticed was the tense small body, that was pressed to his chest, arms clinging around him, a wet face burried into his neck...

 

-Jyn.

Images of her rushed trough his mind, Images of her on top of the citadel, of her transmitting the plans, the look they shared in the elevator, the touch of her body when she carried him towards the beach, their embrace as they awaited death...

Her eyes now were wide and red, she obviously had been crying. His lips formed her name, but no sound emerged.

 

Their chests were pressed together, and he could feel a radiating, pounding heath between them, which he couldn't quite explain, but he didn't feel the need to do so anyways.

He suspected to look like hell, considering the several spots of intense pain. Although he didn't dare to look away from Jyn, Cassian took a moment to check his state, trying to seperate the general pain from the actual sources. The result was deeply distressing.

The blaster wound on his side which caused him to fall from the datatower, his left leg was probably broken in more than one spot, and so were several ribs, both caused by the fall. He suspected, that the pull in his abdomen was also a bad sign, but he couldn't figure out what kind of injury that might be. He felt dissy and sick, but he had nothing in his stomach to trow up, so he tried to ignore the feeling as good as possible.

Cassian didn't need K-2 to know that even if he would receive medical care within the next few minutes, his chances of survival were very small. Also, the thought of his friend, the memory of the sound of him dying through the Comlink, was just as painfull as the injuries he suffered from anyways.

He tried not to ask himself why he and Jyn were still able to look into each others eyes, if they were dead or alive, if this was some kind of afterlife in which you were preserved in the state of pain you felt in you last moments (he really hoped it wasn't, that would just be to cruel to be real). For a brief moment, he wondered where the Death Star was and what happend to it.

 

He forced himself to stay awake, not to drift away again, to soak in the look of the woman in his arms for as long as possible.

Life had rarely been kind to Cassian Andor, but dying three times a day seemed to be a little extreme, even to him. First the fall, then the Death Star blast, and now he would die a third time, probably for the last time.

He had stopped questioning the fairness of life a long time ago, but he did again now.

There was so much left he somehow wished to discover, yet never allowed himself to do so.

The only comfort was, that Jyn did not seem to intend to let go of him. Cassian didn't plan to let go of her either.

It might have been hours or minutes, he couldn't tell, but he felt the darkness slowly taking over his consciousness again. Although the cold did not return, he knew he couldn't fight the darkness back much longer. There was not enough time left, so much he still needed to say... his lips opened, but he had no energy left to produce a sound.

His sight blurred, and the last thing he felt was a pounding heat, pressed to his chest by Jyns. As if her heartbeat caused his own.

Then, darkness took over again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise, the next chapter will finally explain. But i felt like i owed Cassian a chapter from his point of view.   
> Thank you all for each and every comment and all the kudos, i really appreciate it!  
> Until then, stay save, stay warm, stay loved!


	4. Soothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn didn't have any energy left to fight the people who dragged her away from Cassian. She almost didn't realise what happend until it was to late, until there was no chest nor arms of his to keep holding on to as she swore to herself to do until the end.   
> Tears forced their way out again, and as a pair of brutaly resolute hands picked her up and carried her to the ship as well, a desperate scream, full of helpless pain and anger, came from her lungs, and it didn't stop. 
> 
> Jyn doesn't know the guys who came for her and Cassian, and she's causing trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo this is a pretty long chapter, it could have made it into two, but i promised the explanation for this chapter, so it is long and probably full of mistakes because i am still a bit hungover and i have an exam in two days, so this seems to be as good a time as ever to throw myself into this giant chapter.  
> If you find mistakes, just tell me in the comments and i will correct them... or don't it's probably going to be really depressing :D
> 
> I suggest the following soundtrack for this chapter:   
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2URIAPegF4 (Sleeping at last: "Chasing cars")  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzNvk80XY9s (Sleeping at last: "Saturn")  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCMXO9sBIcU (Epic Soul Factory: "Everdream")

Jyn didn't have any energy left to fight the people who dragged her away from Cassian. She almost didn't realise what happend until it was to late, until there was no chest nor arms of his to keep holding on to as she swore to herself to do until the end.

It felt terrible, as if the power, that forced her heart to beat, was ripped from her chest with him. She saw the vague outlines of two humans who carried Cassian toward a ship. Tears forced their way out again, and as a pair of brutaly resolute hands picked her up and carried her to the ship as well, a desperate scream, full of helpless pain and anger, came from her lungs, and it didn't stop.

Jyn was a little bit surprised at the sound that emerged from her, she didn't knew she was capable of producing these. Her sight was still blurred, but she tried to hit out in several directions, tried to free herself from the close grip around her upper arms.

 

„ _Hold still, girl, you're just making this difficult!“,_ A rough male voice near her ear said sharply. But Jyn didn't mind troubleing anyone who tried seperating her from Cassian, and her screams made that pretty clear. The fact, that she still could only see vague outlines didn't do any good to her panic and anger at the situation and these people.

„ _He's in pretty bad shape, I don't know if he will make it until Base!“_ , a soft, but worried female voice said. Two figure were bent over the body she knew was Cassians.

„ _Well then we should get going, 'cause he won't get any better here.“,_ another female voice, rougher than the first one, but very calm, answered.

One of the figures got up and moved out of Jyns sight. She didn't know were the fury came from that still forced these inhuman sounds out of her, nor why she was still able to hit and kick around her, trying to escape the close grip that kept her from Cassian.

 

How dare they taking him away from her. How dare they, whoever they were. How dare they.

 

This was most of the thoughts that ran trough her brain rightnow. But the hands, that were holding on to her, still weren't moving, releasing her.

„ _Prepare for take off!“,_ she heard the rough female voice shout from where she suspected the cockpit was. The gate closed and the inside of the ship got dark, to dark for her to see anything anymore. At the realisation, that they were trapped again, she hit her head back by instinct. A muffled grunt from her pain and the slight pain on the back of her heat told her that she got him. The grip around her arms loosened a bit, but a moment later she found herself wrestled on the floor,

her leg send a sharp pain and her back ached when she felt his knee pressing on her to keep her down.

„ _Kriffing shit, Aeritha, you better sedate this girl, i think she just broke my nose!“_ , the man on her back shouted. She struggled to get up, but he was way heavier than her and to be honest, she gave up in this moment. Jyn suspected there to be torture to get information out of them when they arrived where ever they were heading. She hoped for Cassian not to survive the ride, so at least he would be spared the torments.

The woman, who attended Cassians so far got up. Jyn felt a sting, her back scalp tickled and there was a strange smell, then she was gone.

 

~

 

Breathing was difficult. He felt no pain and couldn't tell if anything pressed his chest down, but his lungs felt smaller, as if he could only breath in the absolute minimum of air he needed to barely stay alive. This probably should be frightening him, he thought, but everything was so foggy and he could hardly keep his mind together...

 

„Captain Andor, can you hear me? Try to stay with me, this is important now, all right?“

 

A worried female voice answered:

“I suspect internal bleeding, the ribs must have punctured some organs, but this bloody shuttle doesn't have the equipment to find out more.“

 

The floor beneath him shook violently. There was no pain, he felt almost weightless.

 

„Damn it Shara, what's up with the hyperdrive?!“-shouted the first voice in a direction away from him. Somehow, he knew the voices, but the fog his brain swam in didn't allow him to really remember who it might be.

„You try getting us through this meteorite field! And you better stop distracting me or we will all have the questionable honor to be killed by a kriffing rock!“, shouted a female voice back.

 

„Captain Andor, I gave you something against the pain, but it is very important that you stay awake now, so please try to give us a sign that you understood what it said.“, said the worried voice again.

 

He understood, but he had trouble remembering how to tell his body to give the sign the woman had asked for. Besides that, he felt empty, so terribly empty, there was no pain, no weight, no struggle...

-and no Jyn.

On the one hand, he somehow felt that he was save with these people, although he still couldn't figure out how he knew them, but on the other hand, Jyns absence made him terribly afraid. Where was she? Was she okay? Why wasn't she tucked against his chest as she had been the last time he was conscious?

Although Cassian was scared of the answer he might get, he needed to know where and how she was. The Urge grew stronger and stronger, giving him enough strength to open his eyes and breath out one word:

„Jyn!“

It took a moment for him to adjust to his surrounding, the dark interior of a ship, the shaking floor. His lips felt dry and cracked, his head was spinning and he felt the need to throw up, but he suspected this to be one of the sideeffects of the shaking ship or his fall from the data tower.

A head appeared in his sight, a young woman with shoulderlength wavy black hair and big, worried eyes staring down on him. When she opened her mouth to speak he reconized her voice as the one who had told him to stay awake earlier:

„Thank goodness, Captain, you are awake! Kes, come here, he's awake!“

The smile that formed on her face now made her look very young, but although he was convinced she meant no harm, he was still suspicious as to her identity and motives. A man at his own age joined the young woman above him, and relief overcame him as he reconized Kes Dameron.

„Well it was about time Cassian! You got a lot to explain buddy!“, he started, eyes wide in disbelief.

Cassian wasn't really in the mood to explain anything, nor did he think it was his position to do so right now. He also didn't like how these two focused on him, especially since he still had trouble breathing, like his lungs had not the capacity they had before, and explaining would probably suffocate him if he couldn't get more oxygen into his body.

He tried to get his thoughts straight. He was apparently alive and save with Alliance members, and he had received some sort of medical care. He wasn't as much in pain as he was before, but the breathing thing might become a slight problem.

But the even bigger problem still was: Where was Jyn? If he was alive, she had to be as well, right? His injuries were far worse than hers (which he was grateful for), at least as far as he knew, but he couldn't see or hear her.

He gathered all air and strength he could somehow still find in himself, and in a husky, broken voice he almost didn't reconize as his own came the words out:

 

„Where's Jyn?“

 

The look, Kes and the woman shared at his question almost made him panic. It was somehow worried and sad at the same time, and Cassian was more afraid than ever in his entire life. An endless loop of questions swirled through his head.

Where was she, how was she, why didn't they tell him about her, why did they look so startled, why was she not with him, why could he survive without her, how he was supposed to keep surviving without her...

 

Suddenly, he felt a small, cold hand on his wrist and one on his forehead, he heard Kes asking what was up with him again, but his sight got blurry again and a nameless pain which no medication could fix spread out from his chest. Cassian heard Kes' alarmed voice saying something, but it was the woman who got through to him:

„Calm down now Captain, please, it's going to be okay, she is downstairs in the Cargo Bay and she will be alright, just like you, but only if you calm down and get you heart rate down again. Do you understand me, Captain Andor? She is on this ship and very alive, but you have to stay calm, you're only harming yourself rightnow!“

 

She kept talking to him in her calm, soft voice, almost hypnotic, and his heartbeat actually slowed down at her words. When she was satisfied with his state, she slowly let go of his wrist where she had taken his pulse, and removed her cool and soothing hand from his hot forehead.

 

„Very good, Captain Andor. Do you think you can stay awake and calm now? Do you need some water?“

He nodded, not beeing able to force any more words out. Suddenly, Cassian realized how thirsty he was. The woman got up and came back with a bottle with a bent straw attached to it. She made him drink carefully and slowly, and with every drop of water, his sight got clearer. Kes was still at his side, looking a bit helpless. His nose was apparently broken, somehow crooked and dried blood all over his face.

 

A sharp rough voice (which Cassian reconized as Shara Beys) shouted from the cockpit:

„Alright, we're past the kriffing meteroid field, prepare for jump to hyperspace! Better hang on to something, this blasted piece of junk might be a bit shaky!“

Cassian was already secured with straps, and he saw how the other two grabbed some belts themselves. The jump to hyperspace was indeed more than a bit shaky, but at least they were at hyperspace now.

They heard a bump from downstairs and a groan in response. Cassian grew tense and felt every hair on his body lifting up as he realized who that had been.

Kes' eyes grew wide in horror, just like the girls did in that moment. Her hands were on Cassians head and his wrist again immediately as she saw him starting panic again. Her voice was still soft, probably to keep Cassian down, but also a bit dangerous when she looked up to her comrade:

„Kes... i really do hope you secured her properly?“

The answer was in his eyes, and both of them saw it. Kes got up without another word and disappeared through a hatch.

 

Cassians body started to twitch without controll, not even his attendents quiet soothing words got him to calm down this time. He couldn't keep his thoughts straight, his mind was filled with images of Jyn, horrible scenarios in which she was taken from him although they were already safe from the empire, that she would die because of a stupid accident, the thought of her beeing hurt in any way already made him crazy.

He heard Kes cursing vigorously from downstairs, which didn't do any good to his condition.

„Aeritha, i gotta bring her up, you should have a look on her...“, Kes' voice from downstairs sounded giltdriven and worried, and an angry growl escaped Cassian.

The woman, apparently named Aeritha, helt a piece of cloth under his nose, which brought his attention back to her. He breathed in the smell of sage, lilac and lavender, and got calmer right away. Her was gaze fixed on his eyes (and he asked himself again if she was able to hypnotize) and didn't let his sight wander again.

„Listen to me, Captain Andor. Your friend was fighting us when we picked you both up, probably because she didn't know us, and she was certainly terrified, very understandable. But she was harming herself, posing a threat to us and therefore you too. I mean, did you see Kes? She broke his nose while trying to fight us and get to you again. For her safety, ours, and yours, i had to sedate her. Her condition is as good as can be expected and she will probably make a complete recovery. She is unconscious _now_ , but alive and as soon as we get to Hoth, you both will receive proper mecial attention, we didn't come to Scarif with the right equipment, since we didn't expect to find survivors after a month, but as soon as we get there, you will receive treatment. _So you will stay calm now, okay?_ “

He didn't understand everything she said, Hoth and „after a month“ made absolutly no sense to him, but the combination of her gaze, the smelling cloth and her hypnotic voice did the job, and he felt his pulse and breath slow down again. She kept her gaze locked onto his until she was sure he wouldn't start panicing again, then she took the cloth away.

When they heard Kes climbing up the ladder from the Cargo Bay, their look broke.

A short body hung lifeless over his right shoulder as he appeard in Cassians sight and his inside tightend. He never noticed how small she was.

She usually seemed bigger because of the fierce energy, that she was to him, because of the power with which she drove everyone around her,. She seemed taller by the respect her past, her presence and her decisions for the future demanded from everyone, that ever got near her. Cassian didn't understand, how such a big character fitted into such a tiny body. How it was fair that this extraordinary personality could be destroyed so easily, only because it lived in this fragile shell.

 

He felt Aerithas cold hand on his head again, but he knew, his pulse wouldn't go up again.

He watched Kes carefully putting a slack Jyn down to the floor beside him. She didn't move.

Cassian was terrified. More than he had ever been in his entire life. She couldn't slip away now, not now when they were so close to beeing safe. She couldn't just leave him behind.

No one mentioned the tear, that slowly made his way out of his eye and rolled down his cheek until it dropped to the floor.

Aeritha silently got up and sat down beside Jyn, but Cassian barely noticed the movement. His eyes were fixed on the woman he died for and with, and yet here they were, he alive and she...

 

„No Jyn, come on, please!“, he heard himself wisper. As Aeritha examined Jyn, she carefully turned her head, so Cassian could see her face. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly open, but she was terribly pale, which made the contrast to the fresh laceration on her right temple even more extreme. A sharp edged stream of blood ran down her cheek and over her neck and soaking her hair.

When his view got blurry and dark, he realised he had been holding his breath. He breathed in again, surprised at the fact that it was easier than before, and he managed to get more air into his lungs this time. He breathed in and out heavily a few times to gather the strength to move his right arm up and towards her hand.

 

When his hand found hers, everything around them stopped existing. Because he felt her pulse.

 

It was a weak, irregular beat, but it was a beat nonetheless.

Growing stronger with every breath he took, he gripped her hand more tightly, very determined not to let go of her. Ever again.

 

Cassian had lost every sense of time. Aeritha patched Jyns laceration up and left them alone discreetly after checking both of their vitals again.

Cassian heard her making mumbled accusations to Kes, but he didn't really listen. All that counted was Jyns hand in his and her pulse against his index finger.

After a while, her eyelids fluttered a bit, and her breathing relaxed as her pulse got stronger and more regular.

Somehow he knew, that she wasn't unconscious or sedated anymore, but sleeping.

 

When he heard Sharas annoucement, that they would reach Hoth base in a few minutes, he didn'T know how much time had passed. Could have been minutes, could have been hours.

Aeritha mumbled something into a comlink, then the door opened and they were suddenly surrounded by an army of medics who were tugging at both of them, and he felt a sharp pain when Jyns hand was ripped from his again. A deep groan emerged from his throat, growing louder with his anger at the medical team for seperating him from Jyn. She still wasn't awake. So he had to fight for both of them to keep her by his side.

Help came from an unexpected corner. He saw Kes push some medical droids aside and heard Aeritha shout in an surprisingly loud an powerfull voice:

„ _Do not seperate them!“_

To Cassians astonishment, the team did as she said. Both he and Jyn were carefully lifted up onto flat transport beds, and then Aeritha was at his side, promising him to take care of everything, and that he should relax and sleep now.

For a moment, Cassian had to think about her powers to convince someone of her opinion, but then he followed her orders and relaxed. He turned his head to the sight from where he could get a last glimpse on Jyn, then he closed his eyes and left himself to the care of the medics.

 

~

 

The urge to vomit woke Jyn up. The bright light and enviroment blinded her for a moment, but she knew she would trow up any moment now. But her hands and feet were strapped to the bed, so getting up was not an option. She had to turn to her side, which made her whole right side ache terribly. Jyn tried to reach as far as possible over the edge of her bed, since she didn't want to rest in her own vomit, and started retching. As she expected, there wasn't much that could come out, mostly water. She still felt sick, but when she only retched gall up, she leaned back into her pillows and tried to relax. And to think.

Gathering her memories was painfull. She was on the beach, with Cassian. Her throat tightend at the thought of him. She remembered the regret they had both felt on the days they would never see. Now, she regretted that there were days she had to see. Without him. She recalled beeing seperated from Cassian as they were both dragged into a ship, how she fought to get him back, how she hated the people that took him away from her. When she remembered her wish, that Cassian should die during the flight, so he wouldn't have to live through the torture she still expected, she started to cry silently.

 

Life had never been kind to Jyn Erso, why should it start now. Why should someone who meant no harm to them come to pick them up. No, Life wouldn't be that kind to her. They were probably Imperials or Bounty Hunters who wanted to sell them to the empire for a good price.

 

But she wouldn't say a word. She had been tortured before, she knew what was awaiting her. She thought of the scars on her abdomen and thighs from her stay at the imperial prison on Coruscant... yes, she knew what awaited her.

But she didn't care about beeing tortured anymore, now that she had already suffered the worst possible torture: The wish for a loved one to die. She knew, for what short the rest of her life might be, she would carry that guilt with her.

 

Jyn expected not to have much time left until her tormentors would arrive, there had probably been an alert somewhere when she started to throw up. Her head was still dizzy, but she scanned to room at any hints to where she was, or something she could use as a weapon, in case she could get out of the straps that secured her to the bed. The room was mostly white and anonymos, no windows, no chair or desk or datapads with sign which could tell her something about her location. She looked down on herself and was suprised to see that she was wearing a clean warm nightgown. Jyn frowned, not knowing what to think about the fact, that someone must have changed her out of her bloody old clothes. Or why the Empire should care about her well-beeing so much that they would even put her in clean, comfortable clothes. This was all very strange.

On the right side of her bed, there was a white curtain she couldn't see through. The whole situation was sending mixed signals to her, beeing tied up on the one hand and apparently beeing treated well enough to get a nice piece of clothing.

 

The door to the room opened and Jyn wasn't left anymore time to prepare herself for what was to come. A young woman came in, and Jyn felt like that with her came warmth and a more pleasant form of light into the room, which made her even more suspicious. The woman seemed to be a few years younger than Jyn, maybe 18, and was wearing a clean white medic coat with an alliance insignia, but that couldn't convince Jyn neither that she was safe. She pressed her lips together, determined not to give them anything. The woman was looking down on a datapad, her tanned face framed by dark wavy hair that brushed her shoulders. When she looked up, Jyn gazed into the biggest eyes she had ever seen, deep and dark brown and somehow familiar, but she couldn't figure out where she saw these eyes before. An honestly happy smile appeared on her face when she saw that Jyn was awake, and she hurried to Jyns bedside.

 

„Jyn, you are awake, that's wonderful!“

At the sound of her voice, Jyn stiffened. She reconized it from the flight, this woman was one of those creature who had seperated her from Cassian. The anger, that always slept somewhere in her stomach groaled and her eyes spoke of the hate she felt. At the sight of her hostile attitude the woman shrugged back a little bit, then her annoyingly friendly eyes filled with understanding.

„It's alright Jyn, you are safe here, this is the current Alliance base on Hoth. My name is Aeritha, and you might remember me from... well, we picked you two up at... at Scarif.“

Her throat seemed to tighten and she looked away for a moment, obviously struggleing with what she had to say, before continuing:

„This might all seem very strange to you, but when we... that is me, Sergeant Kes Dameron and Lieutenant Shara Bey, when we arrived at Scarif... well, we didn't go there to look for survivors, we came there to... take care of the remains of our friends an comrades. We went to bury them. But we found you two, and you were very alive. Well very alive for the matter of fact, that at the time we got there, the battle of Scarif was over a month ago. Somehow, you did not only survive the Deathstar, but also a month without food, water or medical attention, and you see, that's all very disturbing and frankly pretty terrifing.“

 

It took Jyn a moment to process what she just heart. She wanted to believe this woman, but there was to much she couldn't quite explain... and she hadn't said anything about what happend to Cassian so far. Aeritha nervously kneaded her hands as she continued to speak:

„I do have an explanation, ist just a theory though, but since you don't look like you want to talk to me I'm gonna say it anyways. You see, I'm from Jedha, i grew up there and when... well when Jedha city and the temple ruins where destroyed, i was lucky enough not to be around, but that's for another time. Still, i know a thing or two about kyber crystals. And the reason for all this might be the crystal you're wearing around you neck right now. I mean, if you look right here-“

she tapped on her datapad and showed Jyn a picture of Scarif, taken from above. She could see where the blast from the Death Star had hit the surface of the planet, a massive wound in its otherwise beautiful skin. But there was another crater, way smaller than the one the Death Star had caused. This one was a branched blue and violet system coming from the center of the crater.

„-you see this Jyn? This is where we found you. My theory is, that the crystal somehow built a protective bubble around you two for as long as it took us... or any kind of help, to get there and pick you up. Well, at least i can't think of another explanation, but there are brighter people than me to figure that out.“

She threw a winning smile at Jyn, who still wasn't sure what to think of the whole situation.

„Alright, you still don't feel like talking... so we arrived at Scarif, expecting to do some really sad work, but i suppose we have to go back another time, you guys were more important. Or at least you couldn't wait. The others... well, they're not going anywhere now, right? And i think they will forgive us for taking care of you first...“

Aerithas eyes filled up with tears, which Jyn found a bit confusing, but she decided to stay quiet.

Somehow, this girls looks and behaviour was so familiar and known, her way of talking without ever stopping...

„So we found you and maybe you can imagine how surprised we were, but when we tried to pick you up, Captain Andor was in very bad shape and unconscious and you were one big ball of anger and you kept fighting us, you probably thought we were imperials or something, and you kept hitting around and even broke Kes' nose, so i had to, and i am really sorry about that, it was necessary but i feel terrible about it, i had to sedate you in order to keep you still until we got here because i believe you were very well able to rip the ship apart back than. Unfortunatly, we had a small incident on the ship where you might not have been properly secured and well, you fell into some cargo boxes and hit you head really bad, but apart from that concussion you are surprisingly okay, dehydrated of course, both of you. But when we arrived here, everytime you started gaining conciousness again, you started fighting us again, and harming yourself and... well me, but that's not important, so these straps were necessary, also to keep you from falling out of bed, since you were having pretty bad nightmares i believe, well lets just say your sleep wasn't very peacefull, but you probably don't remember, i gave you some really strong medication. I know you probably still do not trust me, which i understand, really. I would like to take these straps off now, but frankly, you scare me and i really don't want to be beaten up by you, so i would feel better if you would talk to me, no you don't even have to talk to me, but it would be nice to know that you won't kill me right away as soon as i take these things off...“

She ended her stream of words, her cheeks were red and Jyn couldn't help but beeing amused at this confused girl. Anyways, she wasn't sure if she was even able to kick somebodys head in, considering her condition. But she still wasn't entirely convinced that this was actually an Alliance Base. So she decided to ask this strange, talkative girl a question in return:

„Tell me something only an Alliance member could know.“

-“Oh well, that's not easy, you see i haven't been with the Alliance for long either, i arrived here a day after the battle of Scarif... but if it helps me at gaining your trust, i can tell you that Saw Gerrara always talked very good about you. Us girls didn't have an easy job ins Gerraras group because he was always measuring us on you.“

Jyn stopped breathing. This girl had been with Saw? She said she was from Jedha...

„Well, i was never very good at the fighting stuff, but after my cousin went off to the imperial academy and they started gathering all the kyber crystals... i just didn't want to sit by and watch them do it, i wanted to do something about it. So i looked out for Gerrara and his men, and joined them. They figured out soon enough that i wasn't a very good fighter, but i was even better at what i am still doing now: taking care of people. Actually, back home, i was a midwife, but I worked as a nurse on Gerraras base , and i heard a great deal about you, mostly rumors though. The day you've been to Jedha, Gerrara had sent me and one of the better fighters, Kale Shesh, on a mission to get some bacta... but when we returned... it was all gone.“

Her voice broke and she looked down.

„All of it. The City, my family, the temple ruins, Gerraras base, all of our friends and comrades... just all of it. Apparently in the blink of an eye... well, i am talking. You know best what the Deathstar does... so, Kale and decided to join the Alliance, and since we had a lot of bacta, they welcomed us with open arms... and that's me.“

 

Jyn was strangly touched by this girls story, and decided to believe her.

„Alright kid, what was you name again?“

-“Aeritha, Aeritha Sagil.“

-“I promise you, Aeritha Sagil, i am not going to kick you head in unless i see a reason, which so far isn't the case.“

Aeritha started to smile her annoyingly winning smile again and got to work on Jyns straps. At her touch, Jyn realised why Saw had put her to work as a nurse, every contact of Aerithas skin on hers felt pleasantly cold and soothing, and the tension in Jyns body slowly started to relax.

When Aeritha was finished releasing Jyn, she handed her a bottle of water and left her to drink whilst cleaning up the vomit on the side of the bed.

Jyn struggled. She believed Aeritha, but she still didn't know anything about Cassian. And she was afraid to ask. If she discoverd that she was actually safe and yet her wish had come true anyways, she didn't think she would have the strength nor will to keep going. She imagine to just refuse to eat or drink anymore, not wasting recources, or asking for a quick mercyful blaster bolt through her neck. Beeing in the Med Bay might also be handy, she once heard that air, the thing every human needed to survive, could also be very deadly when directly injected by a syringe.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. She remembered Aeritha saying that she wasn't sure wether could would make it until base, and if he was okay, she would already have told her so, wouldn't she?

Aeritha sat down on Jyns bedside and took her right hand, gently caressing from her shoulder down to Jyns cupped hand with her other one. The pain faded under her touch, and Jyn couldn't help but murmuring that Aeritha would have been a terrible waste on a battlefield. The girl smiled at that and nodded as to thank her for the kind of compliment. Jyn closed her eyes and leaned back, finally really relaxing as Aeritha continued her soothing caress on her head and neck.

„Listen Jyn, i know that all of this has been a lot. But please remember, that you are still physiclly hurt and you shouldn't rush anything, okay? Can you promise me?“

Jyn opened her eyes, a bit confused and not really knowing what Aeritha was talking about. She removed her small hands and got up, an honest smile on her lips. She shoved the curtian back-

 

-and there he was. Cassian, her Cassian.

 

He was floating in a bacta tank, which wasn't that big a surprise considering his injuries, but he was alive, again he was alive, and Jyns heart turned upside down. Her knees grew weak as she tried to get up, and she felt that she wouldn't get to his tank by herself, but she needed to get there, more than she ever needed anything. Not looking away from his face beneath the oxygen mask, his eyes closed, she wispered:

„Please Aeritha, help me, i.. i need to go to him...“

Jyn felt her small, but strong hands under her elbows as she helped her to rise and supported her swaying walk over to Cassians tank.

The few steps between her bed and his tank hadn't looked that long, but now that she was on her feet, Jyn accepted the fact that she was indeed in very bad shape and cound not have make the way on her own.

When she finally reached the tank, Aeritha released her from her grip, and Jyn put her hands up on the cool surface of the tank. She looked up to Cassians face, his hair floating around his head, and as tears forced their way out again, she smiled at him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahaha i am so done... tell me what you think about Aeritha, her backstory will be important in the next chapters. Do you have a theory on who she is?  
> Also, her companion, Kale Shesh will appear in the future. And probably background Kes/Shara and oooh of course whats going to happen between Jyn an Cassian now that they are both alive and safe...
> 
> I am so done please someone stop me i'm so hungover
> 
> Until the next time, stay save, stay warm, stay loved! ♥


	5. Fresh Wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was warm and soft and her breathed the smell of her hair and skin, tried to memorize this moment, tried to make this the embrace that counted, not the very similar one on the beach when they were dying.
> 
> -or how Jyn and Cassian are finally awake at the same time and it doesn't go to well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo pretty long chapter ahead (again) and it's most certainly full of mistakes because of my poor english skills. If you don't get something because it's so terribly wrong, please comment and i will try to fix it. 
> 
> I have an exam in two days and i haven't studied for it so far because i was writing this (and reading others) someone stop me please i can't even
> 
> I suggest the following soundtrack for this chapter (is anyone even using those?):  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr5b73IG5kI (HeroicPlights: "We're friends, right?")  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o28aXvIausg (Doctor Who S4 OST: "Life among the distant Stars")  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACz-gFib8zo (Doctor Who S2 OST: "Madame de Pompadour" - i suggest you start this song at the point it switches to Aertihas POV)

Cassian woke up, fealing pleasantly warm and the pain wasn't as sharp and mind controlling as it had been before. The bed beneath him was comfortable, the sheets were clean and so was he. He recalled Aeritha injecting him something that would keep him asleep while beeing in the bacta tank, so he wouldn't struggle and injure himself further. He had probably been in the tank for more than half a day straight. He tried to move his arms, then his legs, than his head and shoulders, satisfied with his condition. Then, he took a moment to look around in the surprisingly spacious bright room, wondering how he deserved the luxury of not only getting so much time in a bacta tank, but apparently also this enormous room, only seperated by a white curtain on his left.

His next thought was about Jyn. His core tightened again as he remembered how moveless her small body had looked on the floor of the ship, a fresh bleeding wound on her temple, lying next to him and yet so far away. Cassian had to tell himself over and over again that he had felt her pulse, that she was alive.

Even now, he had to keep telling himself that she was alive. He swallowed hard as he felt a lump growing in his throat. He breathed in deeply, letting out a sigh of relief at the fact that he was able to do that again.

It got him thinking though. Maybe it was an effect of the bacta, but then again... his mind wandered back to the moment, Kes had dropped her down beside him, and his sudden ability to breath in deeper again.

It seemed silly to him, almost to silly to even consider it, but in that moment he was convinced that it had been Jyns presence that made him feel better.

He lifted a hand to rub his itching chest. He touched a soft fabric and took a moment to look down on himself. He was wearing a clean, bright shirt that was leaving a gentle warm feeling on his skin. He couldn't remember the last time he wore something this soft and comfortable. Sure, his usual shirt and trousers were pretty okay, but nothing compared to this kind of fabric.

He pushed the shirt up o examine the blaster wound on his side, finding it neatly covered by a bacta patch. Carefully, he brushed over the wound to find out how sensitive he still was, and to his satisfaction it didn't hurt very much.

The moment, he considered getting up and look for Jyn, he saw the blue and purple lines on his skin. Cassian frowned, this didn't look like the results of a blaster wound. Pulling his shirt up higher, he gasped at the pain in his stiff muscles and tense shoulders, but what he saw on his skin made him forget about it very quickly. A branched system of blue and purple lines, which reminded him of veins, grew from the point directly over his heart, spreading out and getting thiner and brighter the farer away they were from the centre.

This was very irritating, Cassian had never seen anything like it before, and he admitted to himself, that it scared him a bit. He slowly lifted a hand to touch the centre of the mark, but before he could examine it any further, he got distracted by a deep groaning sigh from the other side of the curtain.

 

-Jyn.

 

He reconized her voice right away, and thinking about it now, he suspected he had felt her presence anyways, otherwise he wouldn't have been so calm before.

Completly forgetting about the mark on his chest that had his whole attention only a second earlier, he dropped his shirt, shifted out from under the sheets and put his bare feet on the cold floor.

For a brief moment, he remembered that his left leg hadn't been in very good shape the last time he had tried to put weight on it, but he decided that getting to Jyn was worth the risk. He moved the most of his weight on his right leg and startet to slowly, swayingly make his way across the distance between his bed and where he suspected hers to be.

Loosing his balance for a moment he gripped the curtain and teared it down by accident, but he didn't feel to bad about it, because now, he could see her.

 

Jyn was obviously sleeping. It wasn't the unconsciouss kind of sleep he saw on the shuttle, she looked clean and relaxed and so peaceful, that Cassian started to smile unwillingly.

She shifted at the noise of the ripped down curtain, but he was very grateful she didn't actually wake up. He limped the last steps over to her bed, feeling an enormous amount of relief at the sight of the peaceful up and down of her chest as she slowly and deeply breathed in and out.

Cassian slowly sat down on the edge of her bed, careful not to wake her, since she oviously needed to rest.

She was covered by a clean white sheet and wore a shirt very similar to his. The short sleeves reveald her bare arms, bruised and smaller scratches and a few older scars, but otherwise unharmed. He perceived that her right side seemed to be in worse shape, the bruises not already turning yellow or green like they were on her left, but in deep blue or purple shades. A knot of anger grew inside him as he realised, that those were the result of Kes Damerons irresponsible behaviour, and he immedately decided to punch him very hard for it as soon as he got out of here.

He also counted severel injection marks, some of them also bruised, as if they were made while Jyn struggled. The knot of anger got bigger.

The wound on her head, also caused by the fact that Kes didn't secure her unconcious body, was neatly patched up, probably by a bacta-grown skin tissue. Replacing such small areas was way easier and worked faster than wounds of the size he had on his side, even though he had been in a bacta tank for quite a while.

He sat there for a long time, not noticing how long, considering if he should give into the urge of taking her hands or not risking to wake her up. She still looked very small, and Cassian wondered how he never noticed that fact before. Cassian wondered, if she would be tall and proud and strong again or if he would fear something happening to her small and fragile shell forever. Cassian wondered, if she would make a complete recovery. Cassian wondered, if she would leave as soon as she would be able.

 

Cassian wondered a lot as he sat by her side.

 

After a while, the thoughts about her health and well-being were replaced by thoughts of his own health and well-being, because those were now directly linked to her presence. He couldn't imagine being able to breath without her near him, and he was very terrified this fact.

There were only few people Cassian had trusted or liked, and many of them stayed on Scarif. Like K2. Something in him tightened at the thought of his droid. He rememered the moment, when K2s last words reached him through the comlink, his order for them to climb. Then several shots, the sound of burning electricity and

-silence.

 

Everything had gone black and white for a moment. Not that there were many colors in the imperial archive to begin with, yet his surrounding seemed to be withdrawn of colors and temparture. He might have swayed for a moment, realising that his friend was gone.

Everyone knew this was a suicide mission. Everyone knew that they probably wouldn't get out alive. But listening K2 dying and not being able to help because the droid had deliberately locked them in, not only to protect them from the arriving troopers, but also to force them to complete the mission, no matter what happend to him, that was altogether more than he expected.

Cassian tried to fight the lump in his throat down again, to bury it in the dark hole deep inside of him, where he kept all the things that should make him cry hidden from his consciousness. He closed his eyes, concentrating on fighting all the grief this mission had caused him down. Deep, deep down.

But eventually, he accepted that it was to much for him to take alone this time.

That was when he gave in and took Jyns hand into his own. Gently, softly, carufully.

 

The touch still woke her up.

Cassian haden't anticipated her reflexes, trained by the years on the run. He knew best that sleeping was always a time of danger and vulnerability. Usually, K2 had watched out for him when he was asleep. Jyn had no K2, never had anyone to watch out for her since her parents died, he suspected, therefore she had to develop the instincts that would wake her at even the slightest touch.

So in a way, it took him by surprise as she shot up and her elbow hit his jaw (hard). The punch was enough to throw him of her bed and to the floor. Within a second, she was on her feet and about to deliver a very unpleasant kick against his chest.

Cassian saw her knee coming towards him at speed. Blaming himself for his own stupidity he closed his eyes to prepare for the pain the would certainly follow her kick. But it never came.

He heard a breathless huff and slowly opened his eyes again.

 

He was rewarded by the sight of Jyn Erso, standing above him in a soft white Nightgown from the Med-Bay, hands in fists still in position to deliver a probably very painful punch. Her eyes were filled with pain and horror as her chest moved heavily up and down. Slowly, Cassian started to move from his flat on the floor lying position where he landed after her punch on his elbows so he could support his torso up.

Their gazes were locked onto each other, and he saw in her eyes how the memories of were she was and what happend slowly placed themselves back. Her fist slowly lowered, and her tense, alerted body relaxed a bit. But in her eyes, he saw pain (probably from the sudden move), horror and guilt. Her hair hang losely on her shoulders and Cassian drank the sight of her in. He had never seen her with her hair down. Usually she had been a rough wild beauty of a certain kind he definitely thought had charme. But now, with her face growing more and more concerned and guilt-driven, framed by her brown wavy hair, she seemed younger and more sensitive than he ever thought she could be.The bruises on her arms and the fresh scar on her right temple only intensified that image, and Cassian never wanted to stop looking at her. All the sudden, he was aware of her age again, he had read it in her file, she was almost five years younger than him. And they had both seen and done to much.

 

Her lips opened and her eyes grew wide as she started to whisper:

„Cassian... I... I am so sorry, i didn't mean to...“

But her interrupted her:

„No no, don't wory, it was my fault, i shouldn't have startled you.“

There was a moment of silence between them, when neither of them knew what to say. But suddenly, she dropped to her knees, one of them between his legs, the other one on his left side, and pulled him up into a fierce embrace that made the healing wound on his side and his back scream, but he was to distracted by the sudden awareness of how near she was. She pressed her arms around him, clinging onto his shirt and burying her face in his bare neck.

„You're alive“, she mumbled in his skin -“Cassian, you're alive...“

He was a bit surprised by how the situation turned within moments, but he was more than willing to go with it, so he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her even closer, trying to ignore the pain the tight embrace caused. His chin came to rest on her shoulder, beside her bare neck. She was warm and soft and her breathed the smell of her hair and skin, tried to memorize this moment, tried to make _this_ the embrace that counted, not the very similar one on the beach when they were dying.

He closed his eyes and sank deeper into the moment, his one hand on her neck, feeling her soft skin, the other around her waist, pressing her against him. It took him way to long for someone as skilled as him to realize, that the irregular shakes her body produced against his grip were sobs.

She was crying into his neck, and he was as helpless as he ever thought he would get.

He never cared enough about somebody to really and honestly enough try to comfort them, especially not someone like Jyn. Cassian searched through his memory to find a situation where he had faked comforting someone for the sake of the current mission, but the results where not very satisfying. Believable for those he tried to convince back then, but not suitable for Jyn. How was he supposed to make her feel better when he was only just trying to put himself together again?

So he continued just holding her tightly, gently stroking her back.

„I've seen you in the tank, and she told me you were alive but you were just floating there and i couldn't see for myself because you had to be in the tank and finally she probably drugged me again to get me to lie down again and back off of your tank and...“, she kept sobbing into his nape, which felt wet by now, and Cassian was touched that he was apparently worth her tears. His left hand came to rest on her neck again, fingers disappearing in her hairline as he turned his head slightly towards her. His lips were brushing the soft skin under her ear for a moment, but he thought he probably imagined the touch, and started murmuring reasuring words to her.

That he was alive and relativly okay and that he would recover and she would as well and things would be okay. That all the way meant all the way and not leaving her behind halfway, in an echo of what she told him when they were swaying towards the beach, towards their death.

 

Only this time, they were swaying towards life, he was sure of it.

 

Her sobs slowly faded, and after a while, Cassian lifted his head from hers, looking into her red and tear-stained face. They were only a few centimetres away from each other, staring into each others eyes, but with that, the spell was broken, and the pain returned to Cassian in a powerful, crushing wave that made his arms drop.

 

~

Jyn saw his face turn pale as he dropped from their embrace, his arms suddenly didn't seem to have the strength to hold on to her anymore, and horrified she remembered the last time he wasn't able to keep his arms around her anymore. When he was dying.

Luckily, she was able to keep him from falling backwards, but she knew she wouldn't be able to support his full weight for long, so she as carefully as she was able to she helped him sink down to the floor, crawling over him and putting a hand to his cheek. She was very scared. On his jaw, she saw a fresh bruise slowly turning purple and with horror she remembered hitting him when she suddenly was awoken by a touch. Under her, he started to shiver and he was oh so pale, lips pressed into a line, as she suspected to keep him from letting her hear the pain he was in.

Jyn didn't know that right now, she was just as helpless as he had been minutes before, she was no medic and had no idea what was wrong with him. Stressed as she was, the only thing that came to her mind was trying to do what had worked on herself, stroking his cheek, thumb on his cheekbone.

Telling him that he was going to be okay, that he had to be okay, that she needed him.

It might have been moments or hours, but when Cassians eyes rolled up and closed as he desperatly gasped for breath, she finally had to idea to call out for Aeritha. She didn't know if the young medic could hear her or if she even was near, but Jyn couldn't think of anything else.

It felt like an eternity before the door crashed open and Aeritha stormed in, apruptly stopping at the image that lay before her.

„Aeritha, please, help him, i don't know, he just suddenly started to collapse, i couldn't help him, please!“, Jyn gasped out, desperate tears in her eyes.

„How did this even happen, by the ruins, Jyn, make some space here!“, Aeritha murmured as she shoved Jyn from Cassian. Both women twitched back by the unpleasant surprise, that was Cassians newly in blood soaked shirt. Aeritha shoved the fabric up an quickly removed wet patch, revealing a tear in the thin, only freshly grown skin above the blaster wound.

Jyn rocked back on her botton at the sight of this, clapping her hands over her mouth to muffle the desperate sounds of pain that escaped her. Through the fog of guilt and despair she heard Aeritha call out for help, her hands already full of blood as she tried to pull the fresh gap in Cassians side together. Everything turned black and white and very cold, she saw it happen right before her and yet she felt so very far away. It happend very quickly, but then again painfully slow, like an old holovideo was played before her. Two other medics rushed in at Aerithas call, one of them injected something into the inside of Cassians elbow and he stopped the uncontrolled shaking. The other one tilted his head back and placed an oxygen mask above his face.

In the meantime, Aeritha opened a case with medical supplies Jyn couldn't identify, but when she pulled out a fine needle and a blue glowing threat, Jyn was able to put two and two together. She had heard about wounds being fixed like that, but frankly she had never seen it. Either the wound was small enough to be fixed by a bacta patch or the unlucky soul was only a burden and could just hope for a merciful blast to be released from the pain. Saws men were wounded in action, and there was no time for patching wounds this size up then, so most of them were left to die.

Jyns stomach turned upside down when Aeritha started to stich Cassians side back together, but she forced herself to look. It took over twenty stiches, and Jyn felt each of them on her own skin, reflecting the pain she knew he was in.

When Aeritha was done, she placed a fresh patch above the wound and odered the two male medics to transfer him into the bacta tank again.

Her hands were stil covered in his blood, which she obviously didn't realised as she lifted her hand the stroke some hair from of her sweaty forehead, where it left a bloody stripe. Her eyes were filled by concern and she looked stressed, her brows furrowed. Jyn, who still sat on the floor beside her bed, staring at the small puddle of Cassians blood before her.

„Jyn, can you please explain to me how this happend?“

She tried to answer the concerned medic, but when she opened her mouth, the world began to swirl and she drop to her side as everything went dark.

 

~

 

Aeritha sighed. She was exhausted. She hadn't slept in more than 35 hours, and the caffeine pills she got couldn't cover that up for much longer. She watched her two colleagues as they lowered the sedated Cassian down into the tank. How did this happen? She hadn't thought them both as irresponsible to try something like that in their state. The position they were in when she entered was quite suspiscious, and although she tried not to, she assumed.

On the one hand, it wasn't to hard to imagine that two people with shared loss and trauma would be attracted to each other and searched comfort in each others presence, on the other hand, for kriffs sake, they were both terribly injured and should have known that this kind of action was definitly not fit for them.

She sighed again as she got down to examine Jyn. She didn't have the time to take care of her because frankly, Cassian was loosing an alarming amount of blood. But it was clear to her now that Jyn had been in shock, and shock could be just as deadly as bloodloss. She groaned as she lifted Jyn up to her bed, the only slightly older woman was heavier than she looked. Or maybe Aeritha was just to tired.

She injected a serum to make sure Jyn would sleep for a while, positioning her in a way that would ensure her to be able to breath and covered her by her blanket again.

The adrenalin that rushed through her at the sight of the newly injured Cassian slowly faded, and Aeritha took a moment to get herself together again. She still had to clean the blood away so Jyn wouldn't freak out again when she woke up. She slipped to the floor, finally sitting down, and grabbed her datapad from the material case she always carried with her when she was called to an emergency, and keyed a request for a cleaning droid in. Her head dropped back to the edge of Jyns bed, and she closed her eyes.

„Just for a moment...“, she thought.

 

The next thing she felt were warm arms around her, and a swaying feeling. Someone carried her. Aeritha turned her head slightly, reconizing the smell of smoke, rust and gun oil, and pressed her head closer to the shoulder of the man who carefully carried her through silent hallways.

 

„Kale... where are we going?“, the question, that hang between them for a month now.

A deep, quiet voice answered:

„It's alright Ritha, the headmedic contacted me to get you to you own bed for a change, your shift was long over and you fell asleep in a patients room. Time to get some rest now fawn.“

She had to smile at the sound of her nickname in Saws army from his lips. It reminded her of home.

She was to sleepy to care that she snuggled closer into his arms, and when they arrived her quarters she couldn't help but feel lonley although he wasn't even gone now.

As carefully as he had carried her all the way from the Med-Bay to her room he put her down on her bed and removed her boots. With a frown, he looked on her still bloody hands and face, got up and fetched a wet cloath the clean at least the worst of it away. Aeritha seemed to be soundly asleep, but when he got up and was just about to leave her room with a last smile back on her, she moved and wearily opened her eyes:

„Hey Kale... would you mind staying?“

He knew that she probably wouldn't remember this when she woke up, and if so, she would be terribly embaressed she had let her feelings show so plainly. Yet he smiled and obeyed, sitting down beside her bed and rested his head on its edge.

He was sure he wouldn't be sleeping tonight, but if it made her feel safe enough to finally sleep herself... that was good enough for him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yay, now we also met Kale! I'm afraid this will not only be Jyn/Cassian, but this story will also be about how other members of the alliance deal with the events. In the next chapter we will also meet Shara and Kes again.   
> And... sorry not sorry, i'm growing quite attached to Ritha and Kale, since i already planned out most of the story arc, and they are going to be an important part of the whole story. Maybe i am even going to write a prequel about those two sometimes.   
> Also, sorry Jyn and Cassian didn't get a super romantic fluffy reuniting scene, i felt like doing something else than the scene we all read over and over again in different works (don't get me wrong, they are all great, but i love to torture myself by not letting them have a happy situation right away).  
> So we are going to meet Shara, Kes, Aeritha, Kale, Draven and many others and will find out how our space babys are going to deal with the situation of being the only survivors and somehow being stuck with each other.   
> As always, kudos and feedback is appreciated and will be rewarded with love!  
> Until then, stay safe, stay warm, stay loved! ♥


	6. Healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, sorry the update took so long, i was busy with exams and than i was sick and i thought i might be a good idea to make myself a Hot-Water-Bottle and guess what, instead of pouring the cooking water in the bottle i poured it all over my hand and that's it with writing for a week.   
> I am so handling my life, yes!
> 
> Also, this is probably (again) full of terrible spelling an grammar mistakes. Please don't mind!

When Jyn woke up, she knew a lot of time had passed. Her hair felt oily and her mouth tasted like she hadn't cleaned her teeth in a while. In addition to the unpleasant feeling caused by that, she was strapped down again. On her bedside, in a chair that hadn't been there before, sat Aeritha with a serious look on her face. The curtain was up again, and Jyn knew that this was her punishment.

„Good, you are awake again, i'm getting better and better at measuring the medication to a certain time.“

Jyn tried to fight against the straps, but she didn't succeed. The young medic watched her efforts for a while, than continued speaking:

„You know Jyn, you promised me something. You promised me you wouldn't rush anything. The fact, that the Captain made no such promise to me does not change anything at the situation. What happens between you two is none of my business, unless... oh yeah, right now it is! Because whatever you felt like needing to do down there, you are definitly not cleared for that so far. What were you thinking?“

Jyn frowned at the slight passive-aggressive tone and the meaning of her speach. Slowly, an idea formed itself in her mind. All Aeritha had seen was him, lying flat on his back, and her, crawling over him only dressed in a nightgown. Only imagining what the medic must have thought of the situation she stumbled into made Jyn blush. She looked down on her hands. On the one hand, the thing Aeritha assumed was embarressing enough, on the other hand, the truth, that she had punched him to the ground because he took her by surprise didn't seem to be a good thing to tell either.

 

In the end, she made a diplomatic answer:

„It wasn't... whatever it looked like. It was an accident, i swear.“, she chewed on her cheek, still not daring to look up to Aeritha. She hated herself for the unnecessary pain she had caused him and the work and nerves it had cost her medic. She was afraid to ask, but it didn't seem like Aeritha was going to talk again any time soon.

„Did i... uhm... is it fatal?“, she asked as she finally dared to look up. Aeritha saw the pain and guilt in her gaze, and her expression softened.

„He came pretty close again, but i got here in time. Barely, but he made it.“

Jyn let out a sigh of relief and felt her eyes fill up with tears again. When they started to roll down her face, Aerithas expression changed to concern. She got up from her chair and sat down beside Jyn on her bed, whiping a tear from her face.

The gentle gesture reminded Jyn of her mother, of an afternoon on Lah'mu when she fell and hit her knee on a stone. She closed her eyes again, stopped fighting against the straps that kept her in place and relaxed under Aerithas touch. Her sobs slowly faded and her head got clearer again.

For the first time since she and Cassian had been picked up from by the three Rebels, she had the time and concentration to place the events together.

They had transmitted the plans, used the turbolift to get down to the beach, watched the Death Star approch and waited for death. Then, there were foggy images from the inside of a shuttle, and she blamed the concussion for not being able to remember in clearer. She had no memories of the time between that and the first time she awoke in the Med-Bay. Which apparently had been more than a month after their attack on Scarif. She was still trying to process what happened to them and how they survived for so long, but it was all very confusing. Being kept alive by her mothers crystal, as Aeritha had suggested, was the only answer to her questions she could find right now, but one question remained unanswered:

Why did they survive? What was their purpose?

She had seen her Rogue One Comrades die after they fullfilled their tasks, and it felt like they had died immediately after the Force saw no use in them any longer. She didn't know for sure, it just felt like it when the visions had flashed before her eyes in the elevator.

So why was she still alive? Following the logic of the Force, her job was done as soon as she transmitted the plans, so a Tie-Fighter might as well had shot her down still on top of the tower.

Jyn wondered if she and Cassian lived on borrowed time, if they actually still had a job to do (and she felt terribly tired at the thought of it) and a use in the galaxy. Sure, Cassian was important and useful, he was a highly trained and skilled intelligence agent, but she couldn't find a reason for herself to still be alive. She was a criminal, always on the run and had only recently decided to care for something enough to risk not only something, but everything. Without doubt she was a skilled warrior and had a remarkable talent to find her ways out of prisons and to stay alive, but that was surely nothing that could keep her from burning by the blast of the kriffing Death Star.

 

Jyn had never thought to much about her own death. Death was a part of her daily routine, either caused by her enemies or caused by herself. But she had been surrounded by it since she watched her mother being shot when she was 8. She wasn't particulary scared of it, but she dreaded dying a stupid death. Like being stabbed by a petty criminal who just searched for a bunch of credits. She knew, she wanted to go down fighting, going down the same way she lived. That had come true, and now she was empty. Suddenly, she knew very little. The reasons that kept her going before Melshi and his team had broken her out from Wobani prison camp were so far away, she couldn't even remember most of them. The Death Star, her fathers achievement, which he encoded with her nickname, had become part of herself. She and the Death Star were linked now by the name and by their history.

 

She opened her eyes, feeling the moisture in them again, and looked up to Aeritha:

„It's just so much... i can't get it together in my head, it won't line up...“

The girl squeezed her hand and smiled.

„That's alright Jyn, that's just because of the medication, the concussion and the exhaustion. It will come back to you.“

-“I suppose there's no chance I could get out of these straps again?“

Aeritha frowned, then shook her head.

„Actually, we did not intent to risk that after this... incident. But i suppose, since the Captain is safe and sound asleep in his tank, thanks to you“ -something in Jyns chest tightened at this statement- „and if you promise to behave yourself, i could change my mind.“

Jyn sighed. The girl was right after all, she posed a threat, she might punch anyone if she had been this startled even by Cassian.

„How do you feel anyways? Dizzy or anything?“

Jyn took a moment to examine herself (something she usually avoided) and came to the conclusion that she was, given the circumstances, physically pretty okay. No sharp pain, just an annoying itch on her chest, but she choose to ignore that. Instead she told the young medic:

„I think I am quite okay? Not dizzy, in fact i am actually quite hungry, and i would pretty much like to get up and move around a bit...“

-“Well, it's a good sign you're hungry, and you're lucky, 'cause i can do something about that“ -she said smiling while typing something in her datapad- „but moving around is a bit difficult, since you have been lying down for more than a month and you would need physiotherapy to get your muscles working properly again, and before that happens you will have to recover a little bit more, i need to be sure that concussion is completly healed, and there will be a briefing before you do anything outside of this room...“

-“Wait, what?“, Jyn asked confused, a briefing? She thought they were way past things like briefings. What did they even have to say that wasn't already public knowledge? Aerithas cheeks blushed slightly as she continued:

„It was part of the deal...“

-“What kriffing deal??“, Jyn was getting loud and she knew Aeritha was the wrong one to yell at, but she was the only one in range and willing to give answers. The medics blush deepened and she looked down on her hands when she continued:

„I already suspected it when we were on the shuttle, but as soon as we got on base that assumption was testified. Both of your vital signs, i mean your's and the Captains, dropped lower with every inch you were farther away from each other. But noone would believe me, and many people, including Senator Mothma and General Draven, were very suspicious about your survival and well... what can i say. I managed to get you as close to each other as possible, but the price is that none of you may leave before you are questioned by the currently present authorities and i'm only now realising that it was probably a bad idea to tell you this“ because of course, Aeritha noted that Jyns face was very red by now and her mouth pressed into a tight line, her hands in fists.

„Oh boy this is really not going well, I talk to much...“ and after a small pause she added:

„Aaand i am really glad I didn't release you to hear this because you are very scary right now.“

-“What reaction did you expact to hearing I only survived to be locked up by the people who's ass I tried to save?“

-“Yes well, it is clear to me now.“

The door opened and a droid with a tray try filled with food rolled in. Jyns eyes widened at the sight of an actuall meal, something she hadn't seen in months due to the fact she had been imprisoned. Aeritha watched Jyn who watched the food and suddenly, both of them had to laugh. The sound felt strange and unusual to Jyn, but it wasn't unpleasant.

„All right, I'm gonna release you, I don't think you would like it very much for me to feed you. But please don't hit me, okay?“, Jyn nodded in consent to Aerithas offer (still staring at the food) and the medic opened the straps so her patient could finally sit up and have a meal. The droid handed the tray over and left, leaving a very hungry women and her very amused medic behind. Aeritha watched Jyn gobbling down the food, casualy reminding her to chew slowly and take her time to drink enough.

After Jyn had finished her meal (a surprisingly good one, but yet again, she didn't eat very much nor very good in the last months), she and Aeritha spent the next hour talking. Mostly about her own injuries, and Jyn was informed about the surprisingly large number of them, although most of them were not fatal. She already knew about the concussion which seemed to get better though, and she briefly recalled that her ankle hadn't been in it's best shape when she supported Cassians weight in the elevator and towards the beach. Aeritha confirmed her guess of a sprained ankle, but expanded her diagnosis on a torn tendon. The adrenalin had done its part to keep her from feeling the pain caused by that back on Scarif, and she had the luck to have slept trough the worst of the recovery phase, so she wasn't in much pain. Aeritha explained, that she would need some specialised physiotherapy because of the torn tendon, but if she didn't rush into things (as she did) and actually go through the therapy she would make a complete recovery. Otherwise, she had several contusions and smaller cuts, but most of them were already mostly healed up.

 

Jyn was still busy mentaly listing up her injuries and the time she would need to recover to her old self and somehow got distracted by the question wether she even wanted to go back to her old self when Aeritha startled her by suggesting to her to take a look on her own chest. Jyn frowned at the strange demand, but lifted the neckline of her nightgown.

What she saw was irritating and yet somewhat familiar. On her chest, directly over her heart, bloomed a bruise-like net of blue and purple smashed veins, growing out from a center and getting brighter on its edges. Where had she seen something like this before?

It must have been recently, but her head was still fuzzy and the concussion made it hard to get her memories in the correct sequence. Blue and purple lines, exploding from a center...

She reached a hand under her nightgown and rubbed over the mark to detect that the colorful pattern was burned under her skin. The skin itself felt soft and not at all burned, but she obviously had been exposed to an enormous amount of power of some kind. Jyn closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead still trying to remember why this sight was so familiar.

Aeritha sat by the bedside, carefully observing Jyns reaction. When she saw how her patient struggled with her own memory and that she wouldn't remember without a hint, she pulled out her datapad and opened a picture.

Jyn opened her eyes again at the sounds from her bedside as Aeritha turned her datapad around so she could see the image on its screen. It was the image she had seen when she first woke up in the Med-Bay. She grabbed her mothers Kyber Crystal and held it tight.

There was a lot to process.

 

~

 

The following three days were very hard for Jyn. Cassian was either in the tank or sleeping, but since the curtain was hanging again she couldn't see him. Sometimes, she heard him breathing, slowly, deeply, and in those moments she closed her eyes and matched her breath with his, somehow finding comfort in the more or less deliberatly shared activity.

Sometimes, Aeritha showed up, talking to her. Those were the good hours, because although the room was bright and for all Jyn knew quite comfortable, she was very bored after only a few hours alone. She still couldn't get all of her memories lined up, partly due to the fact she was still receiving medication, but it was driving her crazy. Aerithas soothing effect helped her, not only for the physical recovery, but also to get her mind clear. They talked about people from Saws army they both knew, about different ways to patch up wounds during battle action, about the terrible food they had been served while beeing with Saw.

They never talked about Saw himself. Or Jedha. They carefully manoeuvred around anything one of them had actually been attached to.

They both knew they did so.

 

~

 

_She was climbing up the datatower, the plans for her fathers project attached to her belt, hitting her leg with every move. There were screams and the sounds of blaster bolts hitting the metal walls. She kept climbing, there was no time to be shot right now. A muffled noise of pain from below her made her stop instantly. Painfully slow, she turned her head, only to watch him loosing grip, eyes filled with pain and fear, and then he fell and fell and fell for ages, nothing beneath him to stop his way down, and she screamed and screamed and screamed for ages as he disapeared from her view and she let got._

_She just let go of it all and fell. Like he did._

 

She woke up by a sharp pain on her right side. Her face was pressed against a smooth and cold surface. It took her a few moments to realise that it was the floor of her Med-Bay room. And that she fell out of her bed.

After that, Aeritha and Jyn agreed that it would be safer for everyone if she would be secured while being asleep. Now that she only got painkillers and no sedation, she lived through nightmares, and they caused her to wake up hitting violently around herself. Since she didn't want to hurt anyone here she gulped down the ill feeling at voluntarily watching herself being tied down. She tried to ignore the memories of her nightmares as long as she was awake, but there wasn't much of a distraction in the simply furnished room.

 

On the second day Kes Dameron showed up. Aeritha pushed him gently through the door towards Jyns bed. The Bone in his nose seemed to be healed already (praise bacta) but it was still of a deep purple colour. He looked very shy and a bit guilty as he stood in front of her, a package of fabric in his hands. He appologised for indirectly causing her concussion and after the package in his hand turned out to be her clothes which he had cleaned and repared in order to make it up to Jyn, she apologized for breaking his nose and they were even.

Jyn and Kes soon discovered that they got along pretty good, sharing the same taste in alcohol and weapon modifications. He told her about Shara Bey, the pilot who flew them back from Scarif and how he couldn't figure out wether she liked him or not and how he could ask her out without making a complete idiot of himself (since she was a pilot and a Lieutenant and therefore outranked him as a pathfinder and Sergeant). He told her about the rumors about herself, that she took out a whole squadron of Deathtroopers on her own. She thought it was both funny and ridiculous people thought her capable of that.

They talked all afternoon, giving Aeritha a well deserved break, played a cardgame and when he was finally told to leave because visitors time was long over, Jyn fell asleep almost immediatly, exhausted by talking for so long and actually laughing quite a lot for her circumstances.

 

~

 

_The wind was running through her hair. Tie-Fighters and X-Wings raced around the platform. She managed to set the antenna right, and then he was there again, the man in the white cape, the monster, the Nightmare Man. He pointed a blaster to her face. She wasn't very worried, she stared down many Blasterbarrels before. She didn't really care about anything anymore. Suddenly, he turned around (which she thought was very stupid), and pulled the trigger. When she shifted to the side, she could see who had been hit by the shot._

_He was bleeding from several wounds, but the most obvious was the steadily growing red stain on his chest. He lay on his back, twitching for another moment, and then going still, terribly moveless. Eyes staring wide and blank upwards, and he didn't move._

_And she screamed and screamed and screamed for ages and jumped forward, tackled the Nightmare Man down, pressed a knee on his back and closed her hands around his neck. And pressed, pressed for ages. Pressed shut until he stopped moving._

 

The pain in her wrists and a feeling of being suffocated herself woke her up. Her cheeks felt wet, and a glimpse down to her hands gave away the cause of the pain. She had fought the straps and rubbed her wrists sore in the process. She sighed and tried to calm herself down, tried to listen for another persons breath. But she couldn't hear him. He was probably in the bacta tank again.

She kept telling herself she couldn't hear him because he had to be in the tank.

She kept telling herself that that was the reason she couldn't hear him until she slowly drifted in a light sleep again.

 

On the third day, a specialised droid arrived to get her started on her physiotherapy. It made her perform some exercises to find out how much her muscles where affected by the month she apparently spend without moving. It was a unpleasant surprise to Jyn that she was very weak, she couldn't walk without the support of the droid and her reflexes were shamefuly slow. By the end of the session she was both exhausted and frustrated. Recovery would take her longer than she hoped considering her injuries were not that bad. The droid left her to her thoughts and she wondered, what she wanted to recover for this quick. What was left to come back to anyways?

 

~

 

_They were swaying towards the beach, collapsed in the soft warm sand and hugged tightly awaiting the reliefing blast that would make the pain stop. But before it could come, his body went slack and dragged her down with him, and she still helt on to him, murmuring nonsense words to the pale skin of his neck. But he stopped breathing and died in her arms, and she was left with the body of the man who had saved her live over and over again, in so many ways, and he went cold beneath her hands._

_No shuttle arrived and picked them up and saved him. The Crystal didn't warm them._

_And she screamed and screamed and screamed for ages, but he didn't open his eyes again._

_She woke up shrieking and sobbing._

 

~

 

Jyn felt the need to throw up again. Her sleep had always been light and haunted by nightmares, but the last nights really got to her core, and she made a mental note to ask the medics for a sleeping tablet. It wouldn't do any good for her recovery to keep fighting in her sleep, right?

She dozed for a few hours, to tired to actually stay awake and to afraid of what she would see if she fell asleep again, until Aeritha showed up and realeased Jyn from the straps. The Girl carried the tray with Jyns breakfast and looked exceptionally pale and worried. She didn't talk when she handed the tray over, and disappeared behind the curtain. Jyn grew tense. Something was not like it was supposed to be... or at least not like it had been the last few days. She tried to fight the lump in her throat down, she certainly couldn't eat now. Rustling noises from behind the curtains, Aerithas soft murmurs and then- a cough, that certainly hadn't been the girls. Wispered words.

Her pulse fastened and she shifted in a more sitting position, then Aeritha appeared again and drew the curtain back. Jyn didn't notice the girl was still pale and nervous, lips pressed tightly together.

 

Because there he was and he was awake and looked her straight in the eyes. Everything tense that had builded up in her the last days and nights suddenly disappeared, falling away is if none of it ever existed. It felt like warm light touching her skin, and unwillingly, she started to smile.

He was pale, hair still damp from the bacta, sticking to his forehead, and stubble on his face had grown longer, the dark hair contrasting his pale skin. But his eyes were bright and wide open and she felt like they looked past the walls she had built up around herself, he looked right into her core. His lips moved and they might have formed her name, but she wasn't sure of it. She asked herself wether this was the moment to say something, but she couldn't find words for what she couldn't even describe to herself.

But there were no words needed. They both saw the longing for each others touch, and they both knew they were to far apart. His hand twitched, like he wanted to reach out for her, but either he was too weak, or he realised soon enough that it was pointless.

 

Their moment of reunion was interrupted by a small, shy voice:

„I was told to prepare you for... interrogation. He's going to be here soon.“

And with that, Aeritha turned around and rushed out of the room, leaving a startled Jyn and a worried Cassian behind.

 

„What's that supposed to mean?“, Jyn asked, shifting up uncomfortably, eyes fixed on the door. Her reflexes were back online, every nerve in her body on alert.

-“I have a suspicion, and it's not going to be pleasant...“ was his answer. She resisted the urge to turn to him at the sound of his hoarse broken voice. Searching for the small, blunt knife that came with her breakfast on the tray, she was subconsciously getting ready to fight whoever was going to join them anytime soon. She heard Cassian shifting in the sheets, and she made a vow to herself in that very moment that she would never let the heartbeat of the man beside her stop again. Whoever was coming for them, and whatever he wanted, he would not get to Cassian if it meant harm for him.

 

The door hissed open. The man who entered the room was moving with the absolute certainty of being in controll and in the right to move around like he was.

„Captain Andor. Sergeant Erso. What a... surprise to see you alive.“

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was such a boring chapter, sorry. Probably also took me very long because i found it very boring myself, but i needed a enviroment to do some foreshadowing of the future events. And the plot will pick up speed from now on, promise!   
> I'm looking forward to the Kes-Jyn-friendship (and how Cassian handles it) and stuff. Ahh i don't even know what i'm doing right now.
> 
> Also, here's a stormpilot gem i've been laughing about for like two days now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uQYodLPmDs  
> Go check it out, it's hilarious. 
> 
> No Soundtrack suggestions this time, if you want to have them again for the next chapter please let me know. Is anyone even using those?  
> Until the next time, stay save, stay warm, stay loved! ♥


	7. Interrogation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did it take me another week again? Here, have a long chapter full of boring plot stuff!   
> Have fun trying to figure out what i'm producing with my poor english skills!  
> More at the end of the chapter! :)

Cassian tried to pull himself up into a more sitting position when he saw who came to visit them. He hadn't been unconscious all the time, and he had a lot of time to think (especially when he floated in bacta) about the possible consquences for him and Jyn after their survival. He expected at least a disciplinary hearing and he would probably loose his rank and be locked up somewhere. It looked better for Jyn, since she never officially joined the Alliance. The rank of a Sergeant, given to her by Lieutenant Sefla, was more psycological and symbolic. He wasn't even sure it Selfa actually had the justifiability to name someone a Sergeant. But since she hadn't surrendered herself to the judicature of the Alliance, she couldn't get a disciplinary hearing and also, Mon Mothma had assured her she would be able to walk away from it all as a free woman. If Mon Mothma was still alive (Cassian never allowed himself to expect someone was still alive if he hadn't seen it true for himself), she would keep her promise and Jyn would not face any consequences.

At least none of the disciplinary kind.

As much as the thought, that Jyn couldn't be harmed by the man in front of him comforted him, Cassian was also terrified by the fact she might actually leave. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, why he couldn't bare the thought of not having her around, and why his chest felt so tight again all of the sudden.

 

General Davits Draven pulled the chair from Jyns bedside in the middle of the room so he could watch both of them. He was just as highly trained as Cassian in the art of keeping his expression completly blank, and they both went for doing it right now. And yet, Cassian couldn't help but feel like he was really _really_ pissed. He wasn't sure what would follow, so he decided it might be best to keep quiet until Draven would start talking, and Cassian hoped that Jyn would come to the same conclusion. He didn't dare to throw her a glance because his eyes were locked with Dravens, and Cassian thought this strange staring contest a little bit childish, but he was in no position to make demands.

Finally, Dravens sight flickered over to Jyn, looking her over. Cassian did the same and was instantly alerted when he saw her fist around the small knife from her Breakfast Tray. It was useless against a trained man like Draven, even if she had been in her best shape, but right now it posed an actual thread. Not because Jyn would have been able to hurt anyone with it, but because Draven would certainly missjudge her primal defence instinct.

 

„As I see, you are back to your old self.“, Draven sounded deadpan, and it made Cassian even more worried -“but I can assure you, whatever you're attempting to do, it is unnecessary and you're not doing yourself or Captain Andor a favour.“

Jyns lips were tightly pressed together and Cassian hoped she wouldn't jump at the General like she clearly wanted to do. Dravens gaze flicked back to him as he continued speaking:

„I hear you were already informed about how you got here and... the circumstances. What you do not know so far, at least to our knowledge, is what happened after the Battle of Scarif. Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan was present and her ship was the only one that could escape from the battle, with the transmitted plans on board. Unfortunately, she was captured by Darth Vader soon after, but she managed to get the plans off board within a droid. She refused to give up the location of the current Alliance headquarters which resluted in the destruction of her homeworld Alderaan by the Death Star as punishment.“

-Cassian sucked in a sharp breath. He had only been to Alderaan twice, but he knew of its importance to the Alliance. He knew that the population was over two billion. He knew of the friends and allies stationed on the planet. Cassain had seen the Death Star, and he had seen what it did, he had felt it, and by all means he was killed by it.

And yet, a whole planet gone wihtin a few seconds, so many lives taken... it would take a while to really understand.

An unhealthy quick and heavy breathing from the other bed interrupted his thoughts, and before his trained reflexes of keeping focus could kick in, the newly built reflex of caring about the woman he almost died with made his head twitch around to her. The tray smashed with the crackle of shattered dishes to the floor as she sat up, eyes wide open in horror and definitely having trouble to breath. She doubled over, pulling her knees up to her head and grabbing the sheets till her knuckles turned white.

Cassian was helpless and alone, not knowing how to deal with his own shock, let alone hers. There were no words. No words to describe the loss of over two billion people, no words to fight the guilt she sure felt, just like he did. Maybe, if they had been quicker, just a second...

Maybe the Maybes would keep following them. Since the Maybes they shared in the Elevator.

Would the they ever stop?

Jyn kept breathing heavily, her head pressed between her knees and her hands folded over her neck. Cassian reconised the breathing technique she used trying to stop hyperventilating, but he still had no idea how to reach her. Not only that he didn't know what to say (if there had been words), he couldn't physically get up to reach her. He couldn't meassure how long it took for her to slow down, but suddenly Cassian realised that Draven just sat there and watched Jyns breakdown with a mild but distant interest. He hadn't done anything to help her, and Cassian hated him in that moment more than ever before.

She still hadn't left her curled up position, didn't show her face when Draven continued speaking:

„Luckily, she was soon to be rescued and returned with the Plans in her posession and the Death Star was destroyed shortly afterwards.“

It was a lot of information in very short time, and although Cassian was used to be given just the absolute minimun of information, the delivery of these news seemed very unsensitive, even for Draven. Jyn still hadn't moved, and now she went complety still. He had thought her to be in shock after Eadu, but she hadn't, not really. _This_ was shock.

 

„But I wouldn't be too surprised if none of that is new to you.“

And with the coldest face Cassian had ever seen on him, Draven got up.

„I'm taking Sergeant Erso to Interrogation now, since she can be moved around without risking her health. I will be back.“

The door opened again and a medical assistant he hadn't seen yet and a young man with a Lieutenants Badge came in with a wheelchair. It took Cassian way to long to realise what was happening.

That they were planning on taking her from him. Somewhere away. That she was to be interrogated. The Medic and Lieutenant carefully broke Jyns posture without being resisted by her and lifted her up to put her down in the wheelchair. Her eyes were blank and dry, and she was awfully pale. Her unseeing gaze didn't move, not even when Cassian managed to breath out her name, facing the horror of knowing she would be gone in a minute, that she would be somewhere he couldn't follow. He never wanted to be unable to follow her ever again.

 

It slowly dripped into his brain why Draven had been so cold, even by his standards. Why he seperated them as soon as they were reported both awake. Why he expected them to know about Alderaan and the Death Star.

He thought they had been compromised.

 

~

 

Jyn stopped minding what happened to her. Somewhere between hearing of Alderaans destruction and the destroyed Death Star, she stopped minding.

Everything had been foggy and cold. She had never even been on that planet, but she knew it had a population of around two billion, and that was a number of lives, of persons, of souls she couldn't even start to imagine. And all of those where gone because of her father.

He might have designed it with a little flaw to get it destroyed some day. But he designed it anyways and it had worked anyways and now there was even more blood on his hands than after Jedha. And on hers as well.

She hadn't minded that before, the blood of the men and women she killed herself (she lied to herself about that for long enough she actually believed it), but she had caused the death of good men and women because she hadn't been fast enough. Because she hadn't shot the window right away and jumped and because she hadn't climbed faster and because she had wasted other peoples time by staring down the Nightmare Mans blaster barrel. If she had been quicker, maybe the fleet could have gotten away. Maybe more of them could have gotten away. Maybe the Princess of Alderaan hadn't been captured. Maybe Alderaan would still be out there, and the two billion people on it as well.

All the Maybes lingered through her head and she didn't mind being picked up and shoved into a wheelchair and being taken away. She heard K-2SO dying over the Com over and over again, heard Baze call her little sister, saw Chirruts lips move soundless with the prayer he kept holding on to, she felt Bodhi trying so, so hard. And in the end, they were all gone.

She hadn't made it right in the end. They all died to be burried underneath two billion Alderaanians as well as the whole planet.

Jyn didn't even mind when she heard Cassians hoarse and desperate voice calling out her name, when she felt the movement of the wheelchair, and the cool air outside the room on her skin.

It was probably for the better that she would be away from him. Ersos seemed to be cursed, they seemed to get the people close to them, the people who helped them, the people who made them matter, Ersos seemed to get those people killed.

Ersos seemed to be destroying everything around them.

 

Her mother had been the first. The first she witnessed, at least. Saw had been the next, she had taken over his life and demanded all of his affection and it burned him up until he abandoned her, which didn't seem so cruel right now (it had been survival instinct). But in the end, she came back to him and he burned with the city and his army. She had done that. Her father had taken Bodhi, and he lit a fire in the young man and when it mattered it was bright enough, and then it burned him up as well. Chirrut and Baze had been pasionate all along, and if it hadn't been for Jyn they would have probably died on Jedha. But she dragged them down the deadly whirl that lead them all to Scarif. She had dragged Cassian and K2 with her and the droids circuits had literally burned, and so had all the brave man and women who made it possible for her to send the plans. Everyone who ever came close to an Erso died and burned. Suddenly it made a lot of sense to her that her father had named his project Stardust.

She was Stardust, but she was also a Death Star, burning everything around her up until nothing would be left.

 

Except for him. He would not burn. She would not let him. Not anyone else, no more.

 

She didn't know a lot in those minutes. She knew that she was a cursed being and that she would be protecting him with everything left in her, however much it was worth. If it meant leaving him so he couldn't burn like everyone else, she was willing to do so. He did not survive her so far to be dragged down again.

 

The small dark room they reached reminded her painfully of the interrogation cells in the imperial prisons she had seen from the inside so far, and it made her question where the actuall differences between Draven and Krennic were. Both of them had ordered the death of one of her parents. She was not willing to let that be forgotten.

By the time the Medic and the other guy transferred her to a seat and strapped her arms down, the weariness was gone. She kept her face blank and limps slack, but her mind was on alert. This showed all the signs of an interrogation of an enemy.

 

_You aren't giving him anything, are you?_

 

She couldn't remember when it had gotten a habit of the little Saw in her mind to remind her of his training in these situations. But everytime, he was there. In her worst moments, he forced her forwards. She both hated and loved him for it.

Draven, face blank, took the seat behind the desk in the middle of the room and his two puppies disappeared into a dark corner where she suspected the torturing instruments. What other reason was there to strap her down? She was no threat, at least not in her current shape. Or so she wanted them to think of her.

Draven folded his hands on the desk and remained silent, simply looking at her.

Jyn thought he would be better than that. She had been through imperial torture and she had the scars to prove it. What made him think this would have any impact on her? So she kept silence as well, her own face blank as well and still pretending to be in shock. She would not start the conversation. It was the most basic rule. If they got you to talk about trivial things, they would soon have you talking about the big stuff. Not talking and counting hairs, or threads in her interrogators clothing, that was what kept her sane and silent before. She wasn't planning on breaking this habit.

At first, she counted the seconds it took him to finally start talking. It would help her to calculate his degree of want and despair. She got to around 5600 seconds, but the longer the numbers got the easier it was to got the timing wrong and count longer than the second actually was, so she suspected it might have been even longer.

„Intelligence has a small scientific research departement. Currently, they have been working on a so far very effective serum to get you to talk.“

 

_The Threating, that's cheap... you're not gonna react to that kid! You're better than that!_

 

She had to suppress a cheerless smile. He sounded even more like an Imperial now. Did he know how similar he was to them? She didn't think he knew, or he wouldn't be so damn proud of himself.

 

„There are two options.“

 

_Aren't they always? Take the pain and stay silent and die or give in and take the pain and die. The result is the same, they won't let you go._

 

„Either you talk to me so we can discuss your future. If you stay silent and keep pretending to be in shock i will sooner or later have to certify you compromised and therefore eliminate the threat you pose to the Alliance.“

 

Oh nice, now she was compromised and a threat. That he had seen through her charade was unfortunate though. But this was finally something she could work on. She processed the information he had (presumably carefully) given her, and together with what she heard from Aeritha, used it to build a picture of the situation.

It didn't look good for her. But she would work her way out. After all, wasn't that her lucky talent?

 

She dropped the blank mask and sat up into more upright position. She caught Dravens gaze and his eyes followed her flickering sight to the straps aroung her wrist.

If she was going to talk, he would have to give her something in return.

 

~

 

Cassian knew how pointless it was to scream after Draven and Jyn, and yet he kept crying out her name after they were long gone. He had trouble breathing again, but he blamed it on the shock about Alderaan and the Death Star. He briefly worried about Aeritha and why she didn't come to sedate him or calm him down, wondering if something was wrong with the medical staff. But upon the realisation that there was nothing to do but to wait for Draven and hopefully Jyn, he returned to his proven breathing techniques to calm him down, slow the heartbeat, get his mind right.

 

What did he know? He was pretty sure Draven suspected them to be compromised, his rational way of explaining their survival. Cassian probably would not have believed the Kyber theory himself, but somewhere deep down inside he knew it might be true.

But this wasn't the present concern.

_Slow down, one issue at a time._

If he had been presented with two humans who survived a blast by the infamous Death Star _and_ a month without medical care or food only to be so conveniently be picked up by an Alliance Team and brought back to their base... he would have suspected foul play as well. Probably helt by Imperials, frozen into the current state they were when captured, brainwashed to work undercover for the Empire. He shook the ill feeling at that thought. He couldn't entirely rule the possibilty of actually having been brainwashed by the empire out, it still was a variable, and yet he was pretty sure he died on the beach in Jyns arms.

That had been so real and so right, he couldn't make himself believe anything else could be true.

He would never not die in her arms.

So where were they? He would need something to gain Dravens trust again, and some sort of pressure point to keep Jyn safe from his intrigues. Maybe he would even find something that made her valuable to Intelligence, so she could sign up and work with him....

 

He suddenly stumbled over something Draven had said.

 _Sergeant_ Erso.

How could Draven possibly know about her unofficial rank? Sefla had given her the title when they were already on their way to Scarif, and to his knowledge, no transmittions had been made to tell the galaxy that Jyn Erso was an Alliance Sergeant now.

So why did Draven adress her like that? He could only think of one explanation.

 

~

 

„So we're good now?“, she asked, knowing that she would never be _good_ with him, but the empty word was good enough for her intentions.

„Yes, i suppose we are.“, his answer was of a thoughtful tone she hadn't thought him capable of.

„I must ask you to stay here nonetheless whilst I talk to Captain Andor. I will see that the arrangements we agreed on will be made.“

 

Draven stood up and nooded, leaving the room. She didn't try to get up because she knew she would fall down and it would be pretty embarrassing. The droid had stated that it would take her at least a month to recover and get her muscles working properly again, but he expected two. Jyn was aiming for less than a month.

Then she would be on her way, away from this base, away from this planet, away from the Alliance. Away from everything she couldn't stand being destroyed.

She would have to be even more careful than before, there probably was a ridiculous high bounty on her head. Or she was considered dead and noone would be looking for her. If she changed her hair and appearance enough she might be safe. Somewhere in the outer rim, where the Empires presence wasn't overwhelming. She could search for some old contacts in order to find a job, maybe a bodyguard for some cartel boss. She could fit in there.

And if she started to burn her surroundings again, it wouldn't be important.

It wouldn't even be suspicious, cartels fought each other vividly out there and nobody would think it had something to do with her if shit went down.

A cold wind touched her skin when Draven opened the door to leave, and she shivered.

Hoth certainly was a good place if you wanted to hide something from your own people.

 

~

 

Cassian was pissed. He waited for almost five hours for Draven and Jyn to return, and the hope that she would indeed return to him was the only thing that kept him sane for so long. But when Draven entered the room without company and locked the door behind him, Cassian wanted to scream and rip him apart. Draven pulled to chair the the end of Cassians bed and sat down. To Cassians surprise, his General didn't give him the Silent-Treatment he expected, but started to talk:

„You have been long enough with us to know how this works, so i cut it short. We assume you two have been compromised by the Empire since there is no other rational explaination for your survival. But i value your work and skills enough to bring you here and question you before possibly giving the order for your... removal in order to keep the Alliance safe.“

Cassian had to concentrate very hard on keeping his blank expression at this, practically a declaration of love coming from a man like Draven. A desperate part of his mind in the back of his head still screamed for Jyn and it was tugging at his nerves, not to speak, not to ask about her, not to cry out for her...

But this was more important, this was about pure survival, not only his, but also hers. If she was still alive, for all that he knew she might already have been injected with what was known as the Lullaby-Serum amongst Intelligence. The same substance within the small pills he always carried with him on his missions. He had to shove the thought of her struggeling under the hands of the Medic and the Lieutenant while Draven placed the syringe on the soft skin on her neck far, far, far away. He had to convince Draven that they were no spies for the empire, that they were just surviors, mostly victims of their own actions.

When Cassian started to speak, his voice had the familiar emotionless sound again that had kept him alive for so long in his line of work:

„So let's assume we were indeed captured and brainwashed to be discovered at some point by our people, brought back to the Alliances bases to serve as undercover agents and feed the Empire with data about us. Now -also assuming the Empire has the technology to carry out a succesfull Brainwashing- if we were made to trow all our morals over board and work for them, they could have easily taken each information they wanted out of our brains. As far as we know, the processes of changing a mind to the degree you are proposing, is not that different to just read out all the information we had in our heads. They could have had the location of Yavin 4 as easy as that, no need to try to get it out of Lei... Princess Organa. Alderaan would probably still be out there because they would have gotten to Yavin 4 on Hyperspace and blown everything up. If we were captured to be brainwashed, the would have had everything they've been looking for. It would have been so much easier and quicker to follow the information they got from us and just destroy the base and every living near it than get us back in here undercover.“

The years of training taught Cassian to register even the smallest hints of emotions flashing in his oponents, but the tiny smile on Dravens face surprised him nonetheless. And it scared him a little bit, because it would be a real shame to survive the Death Star only to be killed by his Superiors now.

„I'd like to hear how everything happend, Captain Andor.“

Cassian had to swallow. It was understandable that Draven wanted a first hand report, but it would be very painful. Suddenly, he was very aware of the pain his injuries still caused him. But he had to talk, had to relive it, if only to help her.

And so he started talking, and he told the General about the men and women who were brave and stubborn enough to follow him and Jyn. Of their flight to Scarif, of the relief when they passed the Shield Gate. He spoke of the plan they had made on their way, how the inspection team that came on board was taken out. When it came to Jyn and K2 and how they infiltrated the base disguised in the clothes of the inspection team he had to close his eyes to keep them from watering. He wished he hadn't snapped at K, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Also, his memory was getting a bit blurred and he had to concentrate harder to keep everything in the right order.

He continued with the attack of the teams outside and how the three of them rushed to the archives to retrieve the plans, and there getting the message that the Gate was closed and they were trapped. The coldness he felt in that moment was tugging on his nerves again and for a short moment Cassian grimaced with the pain that caught up with him. He had to pause his report to keep himself from making a noise of pain that Draven certainly would not have been impressed with. And to find the right words for his heroic Droid and best friend, who had sacrificed himself so he and Jyn could keep going. When the words finally came out, it was only a short sentence about K and then he skipped to him and Jyn jumping, climbing up and up.

„I was shot at some point and must have fallen a few stories, the last thing i remember is being shot in the side, i looked up to Jyn Erso and she kept climbing with the plans to transmit them as planned from the top of the citadel. The next thing I know is waking up on a small plattform in the archive with a bleeding wound to my side and several broken ribs and a badly sprained leg, so i climbed up again because staying there didn't seem like a very good idea.“

Cassian paused again, face flinching now that he had to reevaluate his injuries. The wound on his side felt hot again and he could almost smell the burned skin and blood. Draven seemed mildly interested, but didn't show any reaction to Cassians signs of pain.

„When I reached the top I saw Krennic aiming at Erso, and they were clearly having an argument, although I couldn't really hear what they were saying, but I shot him before he could even notice me. He went down and she started the transmission. I cannot tell with certainty what happend after this because bloodloss and injuries kicked in, but i think we used a Turbolift to get down from the tower and then there was a beach and the Death Star and i am pretty sure we were dying. Or at least I was.“

He didn't bother mentioning that he actually did remember his last words to her and their embrace. This was none of Dravens business.

The General looked thoughtful now and and idea formed itself in Cassians mind, and before he could stop himself, the words bursted out:

 

„But none of this is new _to you_ , is it General?“

 

A cold smile appeared on Dravens face as he answered:

„No Captain. How very clever of you to have noticed.“

-“So, who else made it back from Scarif?“

-“Lieutenant Taidu Sefla. He was found in a artifical coma state, drifting in a Tie-Fighter in the orbit of Scarif.“

 

So he was right, someone else had survived the mission. The relief flodded him and eased the pain for a moment. One ghost less he would have to carry around with him.

 

„The ship was recovered a few days after the battle of Scarif by one of our patrols and he was brought here. He got his hands on a Tie-Fighter that was abandoned when the Death Star appeared. Inside, he found and imperial kit that provided a set to sedate himself into the comatose state. Apparently, it's standard in Tie-Fighters, so in case one of them drifts off the pilot can survive a certain time in coma until he is retrieved. Luckily, this time the Empires assets helped us, not them. He told me about what happened to the teams outside from the tower. And about a certain Jyn Ersos promotion to Sergeant.“

-“Where is she?“

“Safe, Captain. She will be back here soon, i wanted a private talk.“

“What's going to happen to us now? And where is Sefla?“

„He is currently recovering, also in this facility. I am quite satisfied with both of your reports, therefore i see no reason to dispose of you. As I hear from the Medics you should be out of here within a month, followed by at least another month of physiotherapy. You will stay here on Hoth for your recovery, but available in case I need any intel you might have. Whatever happens after your recovery will be dealt with then, since it's impossible right now with the galaxy so unstable to plan that far ahead. Is there anything else?“

There were a million things Cassian wanted to know, where was Jyn, had she signed up, would she stay here as well, would she stay with him, what would they do when they were recovered, did the rest of the Alliance believe them all dead, were would the galaxy be in two months...

But only Time and Jyn could provide the answers to those questions, and right now he was to tired to keep thinking about it. The Effort of the last few hours caught up with him, and so did the pain. Cassian flinched again and shook his head as an answer to Dravens question.

„No Sir, but I would be very grateful if you could send the Medic back.“ His side burned and he could barely breathe, chest tight and pain pressing him together even more. He tried not to let it show, but he knew he was in a bad shape. Red and yellow stars danced before his eyes as he looked up to Draven now who showed a very rare and gentle smile.

„Congratulations, Cassian. Not many men die a martyr's death to live and tell their tale. Welcome back.“

He left a confused and hurting Cassian behind when he disappeared through the door. After what seemed like hours to him (but probably only had been moments) Aeritha showed up in the frame, still pale and a worried look on her face. She rushed to his bedside and injected something to his shoulder that made the pain disappear almost immediatly and lulled him into a light doze.

 

~

 

„You were right Fawn, what she told us matched your theory! What a shame the mines on Jedha are lost... maybe we could have found something, maybe they didn't get it all, just imagine what we could do with those crystals!“

-“Hush Kale, or do you want half the Med-Bay to hear you?“, Aeritha was at least two heads smaller than her friend, but her forceful tone made him shut up immediatly. He looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice when he continued:

„I don't think they are imperial spies, everything she said matched what you guys found, but there is still something fishy about her. Look, we were in there for her report on the events of Scarif, but then we were thrown out and they discussed something in private. I think you should keep a close eye on her, just in case you know?“

-“I'm her Medic, what do you think I am doing all day?“

She was interrupted by the door to Cassians and Jyns room opening, and Draven suddenly standing behind her.

„Sergeant Sagil, I believe Captain Andor needs medical attention.“

She nodded, trying to hide her blush at being surprised by the General in her conversation with Kale, and hurried into the room.

„Lieutenant Shesh, i will leave Hoth Base in half an hour. You will remain here until you hear from me. See to it that Sergeant Erso and Captain Andor will receive proper clothing according to their rank. As soon as Sergeant Sagil will say they are fit to do so they will move to their own quarters, and so will Lieutenant Sefla, make sure they are ready. _No_ adventures for any of them until I give the clearance. Are we clear on that? No one leaves this Base.“

-“Yes Sir!“, was all that Kale managed to get out, standing at attention.

-“Good. If there are any problems, you know which line to use.“

 

And with that, the General turned around and left.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So i am writing this whole thing as a Word document and the page count is at 38 and this chapter is like 8 pages from the totall and i don't think it's a very good sign that the chapters are getting longer and longer each. Because that means it will take more time to write them and i would much rather prefer to upload on a more regular base. Ahhhh!  
> As usual, i am ignoring canon deaths, so we have another survivor, Taidu Sefla, and according to the novelisation he promoted Jyn to Sergeant on board of Rogue One, in case you didn't know. Ohhh and we got some new exiting plot stuff, like the Erso-Curse which had been in my head for a few weeks now, and we got some new cast members like Sefla and we saw more of Kale and know we also know Aerithas rank, i'm very proud of myself.  
> Aaaaand in the last chapter i established Hoth as the current base and then i read the Wookiepedia article about Echo Base (kids, do your research before you publish) and guess what, Echo Base only excisted for like a month when it was discovered and attacked. So now Echo Base does excist as Dravens small secret facility to keep important things from the senat, that sneeky little bastard.
> 
> By the way, I am thinking about re releasing this story again in german, my first language, so i can tell myself that there is at least one well written version of the plot in my head. Maybe some of you speak german too? Would you be interested?
> 
> Also, i bought "The fractured but Whole", the new South Park Game last year on presale and today i read that the release was pushed AGAIN. TO FUCKING NEXT YEAR LIKE WHAT THE HELL UBISOFT I ALREADY GAVE YOU MY MONEY 
> 
> Until the next time, stay safe, stay warm, stay loved! ♥


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